Stony Brook University
Harriman Hall, Room 137
7:30 pm, Friday, February 02, 2024
April 8 2024: America's Eclipse II. This Time at Maximum
Prof. Fred Walter
On 224 occasions during the 21st century the Moon will cast a shadow on the Earth, a solar eclipse. 75 of those eclipses will be total, in that the Moon will completely blot out the Sun, resulting in a few minutes of mid-day darkness. Seven of these eclipse paths cross the continental United States. A total Solar eclipse - darkness at noon - is a mind-altering event that is not to be missed. In the Fall of 2017 I presented an Open Night on "America's Eclipse", a total solar eclipse that crossed the US from Oregon to South Carolina. On Monday April 8 2024 a total solar eclipse will be visible in North America on a path from Mazatlan Mexico to the Canadian Maritimes. The path of totality will cross Buffalo, Rochester, and Watertown NY. Here on Long Island about 90% of the Sun will be eclipsed. The ability to predict eclipses goes back over 4000 years; the interpretation of eclipses as portents of doom and influencers of mankind goes back at least as far. Scientifically, total solar eclipses have been used to study the solar corona and to verify Einstein's Theory of General Relativity. Today eclipses are more of a public spectacle than a scientific event. I will discuss the history and timeline of eclipses, the complex geometry of the Solar System that makes eclipses predictable, and what is revealed about the Sun when the photosphere is blocked. For the 2017 eclipse the Sun was near the minimum of its magnetic activity cycle and the corona appeared generally uniform and unstructured. The 2024 eclipse will occur when the Sun is near Solar Max, and the corona is expected to look very different. I will discuss solar magnetic activity and what we can still learn about the Sun from eclipses. If you have never seen a total solar eclipse, this is your opportunity. The following total solar eclipse in the continental US is not until 2045; the next total solar eclipse visible from Long Island will occur on May 1 2079.
Prof. Walter, a resident of East Setauket, studies star birth, stellar weather, and star death using the Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray observatories, the Hubble Space Telescope, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), and telescopes in Arizona, Hawaii and Chile. He has been a Professor of Astronomy at Stony Brook since 1989.
