HOPE – Students in the Hope Public Schools are in eclipse mode as they prepare for an event which will not reoccur until 2024 as the sun goes into eclipse across the continental United States on Monday.\r\n
\r\nThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) predicts that the eclipse window across the U.S. will be from approximately 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. as the moon’s orbit around the Earth tracks it across the face of the sun and its shadow falls across the Earth from Oregon to South Carolina.\r\n
\r\n“Over the course of 100 minutes, 14 states across the United States will experience more than two minutes of darkness in the middle of the day,” NASA’s website https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov states. “Additionally, a partial eclipse will be viewable across all of North America.”\r\n
\r\nThe maximum eclipse window for Hope will occur from 12:02:48 p.m. Central Time to 2:48:35 p.m. CT Monday. \r\n
\r\nHope will be in what is known as the “penumbra,” or secondary influence of the moon’s shadow as it falls across the Earth. Hope students can expect to see about 80 percent of the total eclipse effect, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) website.\r\n
\r\nNASA and NOAA both warn students and adults not to look directly at the sun during the eclipse, but recommend the use of ISO 12312-2 rated viewing glasses which may be purchased specifically for the eclipse.\r\n
\r\n“Looking directly at the sun is unsafe except during the brief total phase of a solar eclipse (‘totality’), when the moon entirely blocks the sun’s bright face, which will happen only within the narrow path of totality,” NASA’s website states.\r\n
\r\nSince Hope is not within the “totality,” students in the Hope Public Schools will use precautions to prevent eye damage while viewing the eclipse.\r\n
\r\nMost Clinton Primary School classes will view the eclipse using viewing boxes which create a shadow effect from a hole punched in the side of a cardboard box that is held toward the sun and the eclipse effect is seen inside the box.\r\n
\r\nOther “pinhole” projection methods are easily available, according to NASA.\r\n
\r\n“Create pinhole projections with your fingers; cross the outstretched, slightly open fingers of one hand over the outstretched, slightly open fingers of the other,” NASA’s website states. “With your back to the sun, look at your hands; shadow on the ground. The little spaces between your fingers will project a grid of small images on the ground, showing the sun as a crescent during the partial phases of the eclipse.”\r\n
\r\nTrees can also be used to provide the same effect.\r\n
\r\n“Layers of leaves and branches tend to create thousands of little pinholes allowing sunlight to pass through to the ground,” NASA said. “During the partial phase of an eclipse, those projected circles of light actually turn into thousands of projected images of the eclipse.”\r\n
\r\nWhile the weather forecast for Hope on Monday calls for mostly sunny skies with a high temperature of 92 degrees, not everyone will be outside during the eclipse.
\r\nNASA will provide a live video stream of the eclipse beginning with an Eclipse Preview Show from Charleston, S.C., at 11 a.m. CT. The eclipse event, “Solar Eclipse: Through the Eyes of NASA”, will be live streamed at Noon CT via NASA Television online.
\r\nStudents can track the eclipse path as it affects Hope at https://eyes.jpl.nasa.gov/eyes-on-eclipse-web-app.html online, according to HAPS science teacher Carol Hendrix.
\r\nEclipses which fall across continental land masses on Earth are rare, although eclipses occur with some regularity, according to NASA.\r\n
\r\n“The Babylonian eclipse on May 3, 1375 BCE is the oldest successfully predicted and recorded in the western world,” the agency’s website states. \r\n
