JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — While millions of Americans will be looking at the sky and enjoying the view during the solar eclipse on April 8, scientists across the country will be studying and collecting data.
“NASA is also studying how the Earth’s atmosphere responds to this decrease in sunlight and how the electrified part of the atmosphere, the ionosphere, how that responds to this decrease in sunlight," said Dr. Nicholeen Viall, a scientist for NASA’s mission PUNCH.
PUNCH stands for the Polar Emitter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere. The heliosphere is the sun’s area of influence. The corona is the sun’s outermost part of its atmosphere.
“The corona is the part of the outer atmosphere of the sun that we get to see during totality," said Viall. "But eclipses are rare, and NASA wants to study the corona all the time. And so we make artificial eclipses. And so PUNCH is going to be one of the latest, greatest high resolution, sort of looking at the corona in high definition all the time making these artificial eclipses.”
But they won’t have to make an artificial eclipse on Monday!
Monday's eclipse is something we all can enjoy, even if the First Coast isn’t under totality.
“The air will get colder," said Viall. "You will feel the fact that it’s getting colder because the moon is blocking a lot of the sunlight. I think in jax you guys are at 60% coverage. And it will get darker even though it’s not as dark as the total solar eclipse. It will still get darker. You’ll feel it. You’ll see the shadows change. It’s still be pretty cool.”
In Jacksonville, the eclipse begins at 1:47 p.m. The peak coverage of 64 percent will occur at 3:05 p.m. It will come to an end around 4:19 p.m.
So grab your solar eclipse glasses and enjoy the view of the moon taking a bite out of the sun!
