All science aside, Dr. Barak Shoshany, an assistant professor of physics at Brock, is excited to experience his first total eclipse in Niagara on April 8.
Shoshany is one of the university’s representatives on the Ontario Eclipse Task Force, who have been gathering to discuss education and help municipalities plan for the event that is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors to the region.
In a sit-down for YourTV recently, Shoshanny said he had only experienced partial eclipses before, once in Israel and again in 2017 during his PhD studies at the University of Waterloo.
“It’s going to be an amazing experience,” said Shoshany. “But ultimately, understanding the science and the history behind it makes it all the more special.”
In ancient times an eclipse may have been seen as a bad omen, he suggested. Many saw the sun as a god.
“That made sense,” said Shoshany, “because the sun gives us warmth and light. But when the sun disappeared, they thought the god was angry with them.”
But in the 1600s, the scientific revolution debunked that myth. Influenced by the work of those who came before him, including Copernicus, Kepler, Descartes and even Aristotle, Isaac Newton developed his three laws of motion.
In 2024, scientists such as Shoshany still turn to Newton’s laws of gravity as well as Einstein’s theory of general relativity to study the universe. And to make predictions.
“We can measure lots of things in the solar system very precisely,” Shoshany explained. “The masses of all different celestial bodies, the planets, the moons and so on. We can measure their speeds, their exact orbits and how concentric their orbit is, whether it’s like a circle or elliptical.”
All the data, he added, is easily entered into a computer, making it possible to predict when every solar eclipse is going to happen over the next couple of hundred years, with a precision to the exact second.
It’s a lot of mathematics, of course. The sun is about 400 times larger than the moon and also approximately 400 times farther away from the earth. The orbital path of the moon around the earth affects whether or not an eclipse happens at all when the moon is lined up with the sun.
As Penn State department of astronomy & astrophysics teaching professor Christopher Palma wrote in The Conversation in an article for The Local’s parent company, Village Media, “The moon’s orbit is tilted by about 5 degrees compared with earth’s orbit around the sun. This tilt means that sometimes the moon is too high and its shadow passes above the earth, and sometimes the moon is too low and its shadow passes below the earth. An eclipse happens only when the moon is positioned just right and its shadow lands on the earth.”
The mathematical comparison between the orbits of both the moon and the earth is what allows scientists to pinpoint the time and location of each eclipse.
“This eclipse, we actually knew already years ago, the exact second it was going to happen, when the partial eclipse will happen, when totality will start, and so on,” he added.
Shoshany adds that the moon is not a perfect sphere. Like earth, it has mountains and valleys. That’s what causes such a spectacular vision just seconds before the sun is fully covered.
“When there is still a sliver of sun that is not quite covered,” Shoshany explained, “the light passes through these valleys on the side of the moon. That’s why we see these individual beads of light shining through the valley.”
Eventually, there is just one set of beads, giving what Shoshany referred to as the diamond ring effect, similar to the image that accompanies this news article.
The Bailey’s Beads effect that will be visible just before the totality of the solar eclipse on April 8. Stock Image
We see the sun’s corona, the light all around it, with the last beads, what we call Bailey’s Beads (named for astronomer Francis Baily, who explained the effects in 1836), which look like a diamond on a ring.”
Shoshany will be explaining a lot of this to visitors to Brock University on the day on April 8. That day Brock is holding Eclipse on the Escarpment, a special event beginning at noon that is open to the public and free of charge.
Educational exhibits and demonstrations led by researchers, professors and experts in biology, chemistry, computer science, earth sciences, English language, literature and physics will be set up in the Ian Beddis Gymnasium.
With the totality of the eclipse expected to occur between 3:18 p.m. and 3:21 p.m., the public will be invited to file onto Alumni Field to experience the event safely alongside Shoshany and other Brock professors and staff and with the help of pinhole projectors, solar telescopes and complimentary certified eclipse glasses.
“We’re going to live stream the eclipse on YouTube,” added Shoshany. “We’re going to join up with several universities and organizations across Canada for that. It basically starts with us because we’re in the path of totality.”
Though Eclipse on the Escarpment is free, Brock is asking that participants register ahead of time on their website.
Like others, Shoshany warns that wherever you view the eclipse next month, you do so safely.
“Lots of people think when the sun is covered partially by the moon that it’s safe to look at it,” he warns, “but it’s never safe to look directly at the sun, unless you have solar glasses that are ISO 12312-2 certified. And keep them on at all times.”
In addition to being a reporter for The Local, Mike Balsom is also the host of The Source on YourTV Niagara. On April 8 he will be hosting YourTV’s live coverage of the total eclipse, beginning at 2 p.m. from Niagara Falls.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
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.
