As the excitement builds for the upcoming total solar eclipse, warnings about counterfeit and fake eclipse glasses are also popping up.
Looking directly at the sun without proper protection can lead to serious problems, such as partial or complete loss of eyesight, the Canadian Space Agency warns.
That is why it’s important to get internationally certified glasses that can prevent any damage to the eyes when you look up, experts say.
A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and the Earth, aligning perfectly and completely blocking the sunlight. But any eclipse will start and end as a partial eclipse when the sun is not hidden in totality.
1:44 Solar eclipse eye protection: What optometrists recommend for viewing
“The problem with the eclipse (is that) because of that partial obstruction of the UV lights, we can actually look at the sun thinking, it’s okay because we’re not getting that same glare, discomfort that we usually get from the sun, and that’s when the damage actually occurs,” said Samir Jabbour, an ophthalmologist and cornea specialist in Montreal.
“Damage can be done quite quickly just by looking at the sun for a few seconds and symptoms can start occurring within a couple weeks after the damage has occurred,” he said in an interview with Global News.
In Kingston, which is preparing for a total solar eclipse on April 8, Queen’s University alerted residents about knockoff eclipse glasses.
“We have found that COUNTERFEIT eclipse glasses are being sold online to people in Kingston – faked to look like glasses sold by Solar Eclipse International, Canada (SEIC),” the university said in a post Tuesday on X.
“These glasses do NOT stop enough sunlight to be safe. You can tell by looking at household lights – if you can see the lights easily, these should be DISCARDED.”
‼️‼️IMPORTANT NOTICE‼️‼️ We have found that COUNTERFEIT eclipse glasses are being sold online to people in Kingston – faked to look like glasses sold by Solar Eclipse International, Canada (SEIC). For further details, please visit this page: https://t.co/bZok8hZEqz (1/2)
— Queen’s University 2024 Eclipse (@queensu_eclipse) March 26, 2024
The American Astronomical Society also issued a warning last week about counterfeit and fake eclipse glasses “polluting the marketplace.”
Celestial Optical, a U.S.-based company, says thousands of counterfeit versions of their eclipse glasses have been sold on Amazon.ca.
“Towards the middle of February, we noticed the marketplace was being flooded with counterfeits of our authentic EclipseGuard glasses,” said Adam Levy, president of Celestial Optical, in a statement to Global News.
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“Thankfully, the problems on Amazon.ca have been solved, but for a three-week period, unscrupulous overseas seller accounts had hijacked our own product listings with ultra-discount pricing, pushing aside our own authentic and safe products.”
The company estimates at least 10,000 packs or roughly 100,000 counterfeit versions of their eclipse glasses were sold online, before Amazon.ca took down those product listings.
“Sadly, we have seen counterfeits of products from other reputable manufacturers as well and it seems all counterfeits are missing the metallic layer on the sun facing side,” Levy said.
An Amazon spokesperson told Global News that it continuously monitor its store and takes action to maintain a safe selection for customers, including removing non-compliant products.
Meanwhile, Health Canada told Global News that it has not received any reports of fake or counterfeit solar eclipse glasses being sold in the country.
Which eclipse glasses are safe?
Many Canadians will get to witness the total solar eclipse, the first to cross the country since 1979.
On April 8, the solar eclipse’s path of totality will pass through parts of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Cities and towns outside the path of totality will see a partial solar eclipse.
Having the ISO standard means those glasses are inspected for safety and damaging rays won’t go through them, said Mark Eltis, a Toronto-based optometrist, in a previous interview with Global News.
A street vendor sells certificated sun glasses to watch the total solar eclipse in Pucon, Chile on December 12, 2020.
Photo by MARTIN BERNETTI/AFP via Getty Images
According to the AAS, this standard is set based on several properties such as transmittance, uniformity of transmittance, material and surface quality, mounting and labeling.
However, even counterfeit or fake eclipse glasses and other solar viewers can be labeled as ISO-compliant without being properly tested for safety, experts say.
“You’re going to find a lot of merchants that might be selling these online, and they might claim that they have this protection, but we’re not really sure if they’re actually well protected,” Jabbour said.
He said the best way find reliable merchants for safe eclipse sunglasses are by checking the list of suppliers vetted by the American Astronomical Society. It includes several authorized dealers in Canada.
Jabbour said you should also make sure that the glasses you get are not scratched because that can allow the ultraviolet (UV) light to enter your retina and cause damage.
Without a lab test, it is difficult for the naked eye to tell if a pair of eclipse glasses meet the ISO standard, since any vendor can slap the ISO logo on their product.
That is why getting them from a reliable source is important, Jabbour said.
However, there are some red flags to watch out for.
Joanne Hostetter, an employee with Explore Scientific, works on preparing Sun Catcher solar eclipse glasses to ship out to customers from the Explore Scientific store Tuesday Jan. 30, 2024, in Springdale, Ark.
AP Photo/Michael Woods
Levy, of Celestial Optical, said that counterfeits of their eclipse glasses do not show their name and address, which is a requirement of the ISO specification.
The sun-facing side of their glasses also has a metallic coating essential for safe solar viewing, unlike counterfeits, which typically have matte black lenses on both sides, the company noted in a March 19 news release.
The AAS says on its website that you shouldn’t be able to see anything through proper eclipse glasses, except for very bright lights, which should appear very faint through the glasses.
“If you can see anything else, such as household furnishings or pictures on the wall, your glasses aren’t dark enough for solar viewing.”
You can also test the glasses outside on a sunny day and make sure that the sun’s reflection off the surface appears very faint, AAS says.
And if you briefly look directly at the sun with legitimate eclipse eyewear, you should see a sharp-edged, round disk that’s comfortably bright.
5:39 Excitement mounting for Montreal’s total solar eclipse
How to watch the eclipse safely
Regular sunglasses should not be worn while looking at the eclipse, experts say.
Eltis suggests that when you put your special eclipse glasses on, you should look down at the ground before looking up at the sun, and then look down again after viewing the eclipse.
While it may be tempting to take off your eclipse glasses at the time of totality — which will last between one and four minutes — Eltis cautioned that it could be dangerous if you are not sure when exactly the total solar eclipse is happening. Even a sliver of sunlight can do damage to the eyes.
If you’re worried about directly looking at the eclipse, you can also view it indirectly through a pinhole projector.
Children should be fully supervised during the eclipse, both Eltis and Jabbour stressed.
— With files from Global News’ Katherine Ward and Eric Stober
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
The European Space Agency is fast-tracking a new mission called Ramses, which will fly to near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis and join the space rock in 2029 when it comes very close to our planet — closer even than the region where geosynchronous satellites sit.
Ramses is short for Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety and, as its name suggests, is the next phase in humanity’s efforts to learn more about near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and how we might deflect them should one ever be discovered on a collision course with planet Earth.
In order to launch in time to rendezvous with Apophis in February 2029, scientists at the European Space Agency have been given permission to start planning Ramses even before the multinational space agency officially adopts the mission. The sanctioning and appropriation of funding for the Ramses mission will hopefully take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council meeting (involving representatives from each of ESA’s member states) in November of 2025. To arrive at Apophis in February 2029, launch would have to take place in April 2028, the agency says.
This is a big deal because large asteroids don’t come this close to Earth very often. It is thus scientifically precious that, on April 13, 2029, Apophis will pass within 19,794 miles (31,860 kilometers) of Earth. For comparison, geosynchronous orbit is 22,236 miles (35,786 km) above Earth’s surface. Such close fly-bys by asteroids hundreds of meters across (Apophis is about 1,230 feet, or 375 meters, across) only occur on average once every 5,000 to 10,000 years. Miss this one, and we’ve got a long time to wait for the next.
When Apophis was discovered in 2004, it was for a short time the most dangerous asteroid known, being classified as having the potential to impact with Earth possibly in 2029, 2036, or 2068. Should an asteroid of its size strike Earth, it could gouge out a crater several kilometers across and devastate a country with shock waves, flash heating and earth tremors. If it crashed down in the ocean, it could send a towering tsunami to devastate coastlines in multiple countries.
Over time, as our knowledge of Apophis’ orbit became more refined, however, the risk of impact greatly went down. Radar observations of the asteroid in March of 2021 reduced the uncertainty in Apophis’ orbit from hundreds of kilometers to just a few kilometers, finally removing any lingering worries about an impact — at least for the next 100 years. (Beyond 100 years, asteroid orbits can become too unpredictable to plot with any accuracy, but there’s currently no suggestion that an impact will occur after 100 years.) So, Earth is expected to be perfectly safe in 2029 when Apophis comes through. Still, scientists want to see how Apophis responds by coming so close to Earth and entering our planet’s gravitational field.
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“There is still so much we have yet to learn about asteroids but, until now, we have had to travel deep into the solar system to study them and perform experiments ourselves to interact with their surface,” said Patrick Michel, who is the Director of Research at CNRS at Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, in a statement. “Nature is bringing one to us and conducting the experiment itself. All we need to do is watch as Apophis is stretched and squeezed by strong tidal forces that may trigger landslides and other disturbances and reveal new material from beneath the surface.”
The Goldstone radar’s imagery of asteroid 99942 Apophis as it made its closest approach to Earth, in March 2021. (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech/NSF/AUI/GBO)
By arriving at Apophis before the asteroid’s close encounter with Earth, and sticking with it throughout the flyby and beyond, Ramses will be in prime position to conduct before-and-after surveys to see how Apophis reacts to Earth. By looking for disturbances Earth’s gravitational tidal forces trigger on the asteroid’s surface, Ramses will be able to learn about Apophis’ internal structure, density, porosity and composition, all of which are characteristics that we would need to first understand before considering how best to deflect a similar asteroid were one ever found to be on a collision course with our world.
Besides assisting in protecting Earth, learning about Apophis will give scientists further insights into how similar asteroids formed in the early solar system, and, in the process, how planets (including Earth) formed out of the same material.
One way we already know Earth will affect Apophis is by changing its orbit. Currently, Apophis is categorized as an Aten-type asteroid, which is what we call the class of near-Earth objects that have a shorter orbit around the sun than Earth does. Apophis currently gets as far as 0.92 astronomical units (137.6 million km, or 85.5 million miles) from the sun. However, our planet will give Apophis a gravitational nudge that will enlarge its orbit to 1.1 astronomical units (164.6 million km, or 102 million miles), such that its orbital period becomes longer than Earth’s.
It will then be classed as an Apollo-type asteroid.
Ramses won’t be alone in tracking Apophis. NASA has repurposed their OSIRIS-REx mission, which returned a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, 101955 Bennu, in 2023. However, the spacecraft, renamed OSIRIS-APEX (Apophis Explorer), won’t arrive at the asteroid until April 23, 2029, ten days after the close encounter with Earth. OSIRIS-APEX will initially perform a flyby of Apophis at a distance of about 2,500 miles (4,000 km) from the object, then return in June that year to settle into orbit around Apophis for an 18-month mission.
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Furthermore, the European Space Agency still plans on launching its Hera spacecraft in October 2024 to follow-up on the DART mission to the double asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos. DART impacted the latter in a test of kinetic impactor capabilities for potentially changing a hazardous asteroid’s orbit around our planet. Hera will survey the binary asteroid system and observe the crater made by DART’s sacrifice to gain a better understanding of Dimorphos’ structure and composition post-impact, so that we can place the results in context.
The more near-Earth asteroids like Dimorphos and Apophis that we study, the greater that context becomes. Perhaps, one day, the understanding that we have gained from these missions will indeed save our planet.
