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Total Solar Eclipse 2024: Insights from Nat Geo Explorer – Innovation & Tech Today

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Photo via Nat Geo

As the anticipation builds for the upcoming total solar eclipse, ABC News and National Geographic prepare to provide premiere coverage with “Eclipse Across America,” airing live on Monday, April 8 at 2:00 p.m. EDT on ABC, ABC News Live, National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Disney+, and Hulu, as well as network social media platforms. 

National Geographic Explorer and Astrophysicist Ved Chirayath will be on site for this coverage to show viewers how to safely observe and photograph eclipses and break down the science and history behind them. From detecting an extra-solar planet as a high school sophomore to being a finalist for the NASA Astronaut Candidate Class of 2021, Chirayath’s expertise and knowledge on April 8th will be unparalleled. 

Innovation & Tech Today spoke with Chirayath to discuss what type of tech is used to study solar eclipses, the potential tech for future celestial events such as this, research opportunities, and more.

Innovation & Tech Today: Can you explain how drones and satellites are used to study solar eclipses?

Ved Chirayath: We have the ability to observe the sun 24/7 using a satellite called the Solar Dynamics Observatory. It’s a satellite that was launched in the early 2000s with a continuous view of the sun and the solar weather it generates. The satellite looks at the sun in different colors, and we’re able to then predict when there’s going to be large solar flares or prominences because we’re seeing it in real-time.

When it comes to drones with airborne observations, they’ve also provided a ton of data on what goes on on Earth during the eclipse. You can see pictures of the moon’s shadow going across the planet, both from aircraft and from satellites that are observing the Earth’s surface, and that can be used to do a lot of satellite calibrations and measurements.

I&T Today: What kind of tech do you expect we will use for future solar eclipses? 

Chirayath: A total eclipse is somewhat of a random occurrence. The moon does not need to be the size that it is at the distance it is. Right now, we’re having a total eclipse where it manages to block out perfectly the solar disk, which is a rarity. And the moon will not always be like this. The moon is moving away around four centimeters every year, and eventually, there will be no more total eclipses. 

But one of the technologies that’s been inspiring is the development of a coronagraph that allows us to block out starlight and look at a star as our atmosphere, which is long and extended. That type of technology is now being developed to look for planets and other solar systems by blocking out starlight from the host stars of those planetary systems, and then ideally trying to direct image exoplanets and discover any planets using. 

I&T Today: What challenges do scientists face in capturing data during a solar eclipse? 

Chirayath: A lot of astronomy is not an easy science. I sort of straddle space exploration and Oceanography, and both are some of the most challenging things to do. But for one, we’re looking at the weather forecasting models. And I’m hoping it will not be cloudy in Texas, which is where I’m traveling to capture the eclipse. That’s one big challenge- you get what nature gives you. 

The second is you’ll practice, you’ll set up your equipment, and all of that has to work perfectly for this period of time. It’s a lot of pressure. 

Photo via Nat Geo

I&T Today: What safety precautions should individuals take when observing the eclipse? How can special viewing equipment help people safely see a solar eclipse

Chirayath: I would never look at the sun directly with the unaided eye- it is an incredibly bright object. Humans have evolved to have a response where we tend to look away from bright objects. But unfortunately, our brains are so powerful that we can force our eyes to look at them, and one should not do that. In fact, during the last eclipse, there were a lot of cases of people having images of the eclipse permanently burned into their retinas, and they see it 24/7. 

Eclipse glasses should come from a certified vendor that provides the right amount of light transmission. Eclipse glasses tend to look like a piece of mylar film that is silver in color and mounted in a cardboard frame. If you’re in the path of complete totality and you see the sky go completely dark, for that moment, it’s okay to look at the sun without eclipse glasses. So we highly encourage people to take off their glasses and look up, but be very careful. The minute you see the sun peeking out again from the side of the moon, you will need to put your glasses back on. 

Another safe way of viewing it is by using a camera obscura or pinhole camera. You can take a cardboard box, like a shipping box, with a small pinhole in it. If you look into that box and point the pinhole at the sun, you’ll see a projection of the sun onto that box. It’s a great way to photograph the sun if you have a camera phone. You can put it inside that box and take a picture- you’ll see some sunspots and the moon as it’s progressing across the solar disk.

Also, trees have these leaves that form these natural pinholes. It’s happening 24/7, but we don’t normally notice it because the sun is a sphere, so the objects it’s casting on the ground are little spherical shapes. But, if you look during the eclipse, you’ll see the crescent of the moon occulting the solar disk, and suddenly you’ll see thousands of moons projecting onto the ground if you’re by trees with leaves rustling around. 

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I&T Today: What scientific research opportunities does this eclipse present for astronomers and astrophysicists?

Chirayath: One thing I ask people to look out for are solar flares and prominences. These are pieces of the photosphere of the sun that are incredibly hot plasmas that are shooting off of the sun and arcing around, three times the size of Earth or larger, and they’re moving at a speed that you can visually see, which is quite astonishing. People think of the universe as this very static place, but it’s not.

Another research opportunity is with the solar corona. We also call it the photosphere of the sun. So the sun is a big object, it’s around 1,000 Earths in size, and some dynamics are occurring on this body in real-time that you can see if you have a solar telescope, but if you don’t, you only really see it during a total eclipse. 

Scientists are excited to study this because it’s still quite poorly understood. The temperature of the solar corona is around a million degrees Kelvin, compared to the surface of the sun, which is only about 6,000 degrees Kelvin. And that’s a counterintuitive thing. So, scientists are eager to study this by using different properties of light. We look at the color of light and polarizations of how the light is tilted. That’s one of NASA’s campaigns- using citizen scientists to make observations of the polarization of that corona to understand a little bit more of the physics that’s going on in our closest star. 

I&T Today: What can our readers expect from ABC News and National Geographic’s ‘Eclipse Across America’ and why should they tune in? 

Chirayath: It’s one of the most exciting events in human history because it brings everybody together in a unique way. It ties us to nature in a very special way. So, when I think they look at the program, they’ll get to see multiple different cultures, people, and places celebrating the same event, really getting a spectacle of what your universe has to offer and how it does not discriminate based on who you are, where you are, what color you are, or what kind of background you come from. It’s easily accessible to everybody.

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Here’s how Helene and other storms dumped a whopping 40 trillion gallons of rain on the South

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More than 40 trillion gallons of rain drenched the Southeast United States in the last week from Hurricane Helene and a run-of-the-mill rainstorm that sloshed in ahead of it — an unheard of amount of water that has stunned experts.

That’s enough to fill the Dallas Cowboys’ stadium 51,000 times, or Lake Tahoe just once. If it was concentrated just on the state of North Carolina that much water would be 3.5 feet deep (more than 1 meter). It’s enough to fill more than 60 million Olympic-size swimming pools.

“That’s an astronomical amount of precipitation,” said Ed Clark, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Water Center in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. “I have not seen something in my 25 years of working at the weather service that is this geographically large of an extent and the sheer volume of water that fell from the sky.”

The flood damage from the rain is apocalyptic, meteorologists said. More than 100 people are dead, according to officials.

Private meteorologist Ryan Maue, a former NOAA chief scientist, calculated the amount of rain, using precipitation measurements made in 2.5-mile-by-2.5 mile grids as measured by satellites and ground observations. He came up with 40 trillion gallons through Sunday for the eastern United States, with 20 trillion gallons of that hitting just Georgia, Tennessee, the Carolinas and Florida from Hurricane Helene.

Clark did the calculations independently and said the 40 trillion gallon figure (151 trillion liters) is about right and, if anything, conservative. Maue said maybe 1 to 2 trillion more gallons of rain had fallen, much if it in Virginia, since his calculations.

Clark, who spends much of his work on issues of shrinking western water supplies, said to put the amount of rain in perspective, it’s more than twice the combined amount of water stored by two key Colorado River basin reservoirs: Lake Powell and Lake Mead.

Several meteorologists said this was a combination of two, maybe three storm systems. Before Helene struck, rain had fallen heavily for days because a low pressure system had “cut off” from the jet stream — which moves weather systems along west to east — and stalled over the Southeast. That funneled plenty of warm water from the Gulf of Mexico. And a storm that fell just short of named status parked along North Carolina’s Atlantic coast, dumping as much as 20 inches of rain, said North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello.

Then add Helene, one of the largest storms in the last couple decades and one that held plenty of rain because it was young and moved fast before it hit the Appalachians, said University of Albany hurricane expert Kristen Corbosiero.

“It was not just a perfect storm, but it was a combination of multiple storms that that led to the enormous amount of rain,” Maue said. “That collected at high elevation, we’re talking 3,000 to 6000 feet. And when you drop trillions of gallons on a mountain, that has to go down.”

The fact that these storms hit the mountains made everything worse, and not just because of runoff. The interaction between the mountains and the storm systems wrings more moisture out of the air, Clark, Maue and Corbosiero said.

North Carolina weather officials said their top measurement total was 31.33 inches in the tiny town of Busick. Mount Mitchell also got more than 2 feet of rainfall.

Before 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, “I said to our colleagues, you know, I never thought in my career that we would measure rainfall in feet,” Clark said. “And after Harvey, Florence, the more isolated events in eastern Kentucky, portions of South Dakota. We’re seeing events year in and year out where we are measuring rainfall in feet.”

Storms are getting wetter as the climate change s, said Corbosiero and Dello. A basic law of physics says the air holds nearly 4% more moisture for every degree Fahrenheit warmer (7% for every degree Celsius) and the world has warmed more than 2 degrees (1.2 degrees Celsius) since pre-industrial times.

Corbosiero said meteorologists are vigorously debating how much of Helene is due to worsening climate change and how much is random.

For Dello, the “fingerprints of climate change” were clear.

“We’ve seen tropical storm impacts in western North Carolina. But these storms are wetter and these storms are warmer. And there would have been a time when a tropical storm would have been heading toward North Carolina and would have caused some rain and some damage, but not apocalyptic destruction. ”

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Follow AP’s climate coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate

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Follow Seth Borenstein on Twitter at @borenbears

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Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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‘Big Sam’: Paleontologists unearth giant skull of Pachyrhinosaurus in Alberta

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It’s a dinosaur that roamed Alberta’s badlands more than 70 million years ago, sporting a big, bumpy, bony head the size of a baby elephant.

On Wednesday, paleontologists near Grande Prairie pulled its 272-kilogram skull from the ground.

They call it “Big Sam.”

The adult Pachyrhinosaurus is the second plant-eating dinosaur to be unearthed from a dense bonebed belonging to a herd that died together on the edge of a valley that now sits 450 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

It didn’t die alone.

“We have hundreds of juvenile bones in the bonebed, so we know that there are many babies and some adults among all of the big adults,” Emily Bamforth, a paleontologist with the nearby Philip J. Currie Dinosaur Museum, said in an interview on the way to the dig site.

She described the horned Pachyrhinosaurus as “the smaller, older cousin of the triceratops.”

“This species of dinosaur is endemic to the Grand Prairie area, so it’s found here and nowhere else in the world. They are … kind of about the size of an Indian elephant and a rhino,” she added.

The head alone, she said, is about the size of a baby elephant.

The discovery was a long time coming.

The bonebed was first discovered by a high school teacher out for a walk about 50 years ago. It took the teacher a decade to get anyone from southern Alberta to come to take a look.

“At the time, sort of in the ’70s and ’80s, paleontology in northern Alberta was virtually unknown,” said Bamforth.

When paleontogists eventually got to the site, Bamforth said, they learned “it’s actually one of the densest dinosaur bonebeds in North America.”

“It contains about 100 to 300 bones per square metre,” she said.

Paleontologists have been at the site sporadically ever since, combing through bones belonging to turtles, dinosaurs and lizards. Sixteen years ago, they discovered a large skull of an approximately 30-year-old Pachyrhinosaurus, which is now at the museum.

About a year ago, they found the second adult: Big Sam.

Bamforth said both dinosaurs are believed to have been the elders in the herd.

“Their distinguishing feature is that, instead of having a horn on their nose like a triceratops, they had this big, bony bump called a boss. And they have big, bony bumps over their eyes as well,” she said.

“It makes them look a little strange. It’s the one dinosaur that if you find it, it’s the only possible thing it can be.”

The genders of the two adults are unknown.

Bamforth said the extraction was difficult because Big Sam was intertwined in a cluster of about 300 other bones.

The skull was found upside down, “as if the animal was lying on its back,” but was well preserved, she said.

She said the excavation process involved putting plaster on the skull and wooden planks around if for stability. From there, it was lifted out — very carefully — with a crane, and was to be shipped on a trolley to the museum for study.

“I have extracted skulls in the past. This is probably the biggest one I’ve ever done though,” said Bamforth.

“It’s pretty exciting.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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The ancient jar smashed by a 4-year-old is back on display at an Israeli museum after repair

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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.”

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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