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As you know by now, as probably everyone knows by now, this coming Monday, April 8th, millions of people in North America are going to experience a solar eclipse. At the first instant when the moon moves in front of the sun, you see this little, little tiny black spot on the sun and the crescent starts to increase. This is astronomer and eclipse chaser Shadia Habal. And during that time, the temperature starts to drop and you feel...
— The surrounding background is getting dimmer, like a huge cloud is coming in front of the sun. — No matter where you are in North America on Monday, you'll probably get to see something like this: the moon covering at least a section of the sun. A partial solar eclipse.
But if you're in exactly the right place, this narrow path that runs up from Mexico to Indianapolis to Montreal, the moon is going to line up directly in front of the sun. And Shadia says this is a completely different experience. When it happens, it's like there's a sound of whoosh. When this happens, if you're in this narrow path, what's called the path of totality,
It almost feels like nighttime in the middle of the day. And at just that instant when the moon completely blocks the sun, then you will see these majestic rays appearing everywhere. At this point, you can stare directly at a fully blotted out sun. It just feels like magic. It feels like out of this world. It feels supernatural. It's just like it hits you in every part of your body. It's not just visually. You just feel like
Something is surrounding you. Something is taking you to a place you've never been before. But totality is short. It only lasts anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. And eclipses seem to happen almost randomly, all over the place.
So Shadia has to chase them. For almost 30 years, Shadia and her team have been hunting eclipses all over the world, wherever they can find them. We've been to Mongolia, we've been to Antarctica, we've been to Libya, we've been to... ...Satakota, French Polynesia... ...Beyond the Arctic Circle... ...Norway, Syria... ...Chile and Argentina... ...Zambia and South Africa. And this one would be my 20th.
I'm Noam Hassenfeld, and this week on Unexplainable, what's kept Shadia coming back over and over again to study eclipses all across the world? Shadia first got interested in eclipses as a way to study a particular part of the sun, the corona. The corona is the atmosphere of the sun.
And it's actually a very, very hot atmosphere, like over a million degrees. At this temperature, the super hot gas that makes up the sun gets even hotter. So hot that it actually breaks down. It's like when you put a pot of water on the stove and you boil it, it evaporates and then you have vapor. Well, here in the corona, you're not just producing vapor, you're producing individual particles that
called free electrons. So sometimes it's streaming away happily, and then sometimes you have what we call a storm or an explosion at the sun. Solar storms send tons of electromagnetic radiation streaming away from the sun. And this radiation often ends up hitting Earth. Sometimes it can lead to beautiful phenomena like the Northern Lights,
But it can also cause massive problems. Because they carry very large currents, they can short-circuit satellites. So you basically disrupt electricity, you disrupt telephone services. So it can be pretty major. There was the Carrington event in 1859. People used the telegraph at the time. And they noticed that the needles of the compasses started to move erratically.
and they just couldn't use the telegraph anymore. There was the New York railroad storm of 1921. Mr. Carlton, president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, announces that the damage done by the Aurora Borealis on Saturday evening may necessitate the lifting of some of the transatlantic cables for repairs. In 1989, a solar storm knocked out the power in Quebec. Early this morning, six million people across Quebec woke up to darkness and disbelief.
The entire province hit by a power failure. And just a couple years ago, a solar storm took down almost an entire fleet of satellites. And now they either are going to or already have reentered Earth's atmosphere. But despite how much damage solar storms can do on Earth, scientists are still struggling to predict them. And that's because they don't understand so much about how the corona works, including a really basic sounding question. Why is the corona hot?
That might sound kind of obvious, right? Like the sun is hot. The corona is part of the sun, also hot. But there's another key piece of the puzzle here. Space is cold and the corona is huge. It extends five million miles into deep freezing space. What's weird is it's a very hot temperature compared to the surface of the sun. You would think the temperature would drop with distance, but it doesn't.
Shadia started trying to figure out what makes the corona so hot by simulating it. I was doing models of the corona, trying to figure out what processes heat the corona. And I realized that the temperature was a critical piece of information I needed to have. The best way to get these temperature measurements is by taking special photos of the corona.
But the only time you can actually see the corona is when the rest of the sun is covered up. Because the corona is a million times fainter than the very bright sun. Otherwise, you won't see the corona. So in 1995, Shadia went to India to catch her first total solar eclipse. It was 42 seconds long, but it was probably the most spectacular one I saw. Whoosh.
When the Moon has totally blocked the bright surface of the Sun, you see these structures that look like rays, rays upon rays just expanding from the Sun. And they really fill the skies. These kind of what we call streamers extending all the way to infinity visually.
These rays upon rays were the corona itself. The sun was covered, and Shadia was finally able to see the halo of light that surrounded it.
But she had to move quickly. We literally had 42 seconds, so I couldn't spend too much time looking around or anything. We had to really pay attention to operating the cameras that we had. She took a picture. So I thought, okay, one measurement and that's it. But after 42 seconds, the sun started peeking out from behind the moon. The world filled up with light again. And Shadia realized pretty quickly that just one measurement from one solar eclipse wasn't going to be enough.
She needed to start chasing eclipses all over the world to get the data she needed. But why do we even need an eclipse to study this? Can't we do this artificially, like put something up to block out most of the sun and see the corona? Well, because it doesn't do as good a job as a natural eclipse.
Why doesn't it do as good of a job? It's a very small blocker, whereas the moon is huge. So it dims the light to the point where the sky is like nighttime. Ah, okay. So if I were to say, let's say I go outside and I want to study the corona. So I hold up a quarter, you know, in front of the sun and I can block the sun and maybe just see the corona. But because it's so close to my eye, it's
everything will be filled up with sunlight. Yes. So with an eclipse, you get everything. You get the very intricate structures very, very close to the sun, and you get everything that's streaming away as you look further away. So you see this continuous stream
transition from the surface outwards that you don't get with any other instruments at the moment. When you are actually looking at the eclipse, what is the instrument you're using? Our optical systems are like very small telescopes. But the key element is something we call a spectrometer, which is like a prism when you let the light go through a prism and it splits the colors. And so we capture these different colors.
And each color corresponds to a different temperature in the corona.
So is what you're doing, is it fair to say you're creating like a temperature map of the sun or of the corona? Of the corona, yes, exactly. And that map is going to help make these models of how the corona works more accurate? Yes, exactly. Are we close at all to being able to use some of these models to be like, okay, this is when this will happen. We got to prepare the satellites. Not yet. Okay. We have some clues. We know what's causing them.
but we can't predict when they will happen. And that's one of the things we're trying to gather some more information from our eclipse observations. Are we any closer than we were 30 years ago? Yes, yeah. But we still don't have a reliable answer.
— How close are we to predicting? Are these measurements helping these predictions? — Yes, but like any scientific research, you discover something and then you discover that there's a lot more to discover. So there isn't something where you say, "Full stop, I've finished." It just keeps on going. This is the beauty of scientific research, is you're never done. — This Monday, Shadi is heading out to record her 20th eclipse.
But for all her technical equipment and expertise and experience, she still has to deal with her biggest nemesis, clouds. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Whether you're selling a little or a lot.
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Hey, unexplainable listeners. Sue Bird here. And I'm Megan Rapinoe. Women's sports are reaching new heights these days, and there's so much to talk about and so much to explain. You mean, like, why do female athletes make less money on average than male athletes?
Great question. So, Sue and I are launching a podcast where we're going to deep dive into all things sports, and then some. We're calling it A Touch More. Because women's sports is everything. Pop culture, economics, politics, you name it. And there's no better folks than us to talk about what happens on the court or on the field.
and everywhere else, too. And we're going to share a little bit about our lives together as well. Not just the cool stuff like MetGalas and All-Star Games, but our day-to-day lives as well. You say that like our day-to-day lives aren't glamorous. True. Whether it's breaking down the biggest games or discussing the latest headlines, we'll be bringing a touch more insight into the world of sports and beyond. Follow A Touch More wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every Wednesday.
Hi, everyone. This is Kara Swisher, host of On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We've had some great guests on the pod this summer, and we are not slowing down. Last month, we had MSNBC's Rachel Maddow on, then two separate expert panels to talk about everything going on in the presidential race, and there's a lot going on, and Ron Klain, President Biden's former chief of staff. And it keeps on getting better. This week, we have the one and only former Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. And we have the one and only former Speaker of the House,
After the drama of the last two weeks and President Biden's decision to step out of the race, a lot of people think the speaker has some explaining to do. And I definitely went there with her, although she's a tough nut, as you'll find. The full episode is out now, and you can listen wherever you get your podcasts. What would you say is the biggest obstacle in eclipse observations or chasing eclipses? The weather. Yeah.
It's true. We lost 40% of our observations to clouds. Wow. 40%? So out of, you said, out of how many eclipses? 20, for example. This would be my 20th. We lost 40%. We lost eight. Yeah, that sounds extremely... Yes. I don't know. I imagine that's got to be really disappointing. Well, it's heartbreaking, yes.
Because so many times what happens during, just a little bit before totality, the temperature drops and you have atmospheric conditions that happen suddenly. So once in South Africa, it was perfectly crystal clear skies and the cloud just formed smack in front of the sun. Oh my God. Just before totality. It's almost like you put it on purpose. Oh my God. Here was a cloud. It just decided to...
be right in front of the sun, and then it dispersed the moment the eclipse was over. So you're set up, you have your equipment, and then a cloud shows up, and then you're just done? Like, you can't do anything? Yeah, you lost everything. You have no data. And another time we were in Kenya, we had a sandstorm just 15 minutes before the eclipse. We were close to a lake, and basically the wind pattern shifted.
And then all of a sudden we were looking towards the sun and a colleague of mine turned around and he said, oh, SH. I said, what's the matter? We looked back and this huge cloud was coming barely towards us. What did you do? We covered the equipment. We had to. It was very, very fast and we were totally clouded out.
It just seems like there must be a better way to do this. Well, there are ways. Recently, we were in Antarctica and unfortunately, we were clouded out. It was really heartbreaking because the sky was crystal clear the day before and crystal clear two hours after totality. Wow. So one of my colleagues, he just came up with the idea and say, why don't we fly a kite? Fly a kite? Well.
Well, it's not just any type of kite. It's quite large. It has a wingspan of about six and a half meters. So we attached a spectrometer to it. The idea is that if it's cloudy with a kite, you can go up to four or five thousand meters and you can get above the clouds.
So we tried last year in Australia with a kite. What was it like testing something like this? Were you nervous? Yes, we were very nervous, but it was the most exhilarating experience. It was like watching the Sputnik. And the other option we're also trying this year is NASA has a research aircraft called the WB-57. Now that airplane flies up to 60,000 feet where there are no clouds.
And that airplane, is it flying along the path of totality? Yes, exactly. So it's the engineers and the pilots of this NASA project. They can follow the path of totality. How many more eclipses do you think it's going to take before you have an answer? I don't know. I honestly don't know. I mean, the thing is, there's nobody else in this world who's doing what we're doing.
In research, you know, you discover and then you have new questions. So maybe you find an answer to one question, but then you raise 10 more. So it's a continuous process. And this is how science advances. So to say that we will stop learning, no, we'll keep on learning. So you're just going to keep chasing eclipses for the rest of your career? I'll keep on chasing eclipses until I can't chase them anymore and somebody else has to do it.
This episode was produced by me, Manning Witt. We had editing from Jorge Just with help from Brian Resnick and Noam Hassenfeld. Sound design and mixing from Christian Ayala. Scoring from Noam. And fact-checking from Melissa Hirsch. Meredith Hodnot runs the show. And Bird Pinkerton winced as a platypus injected her with the antidote. She looked around and saw blinking lights and whirring machinery entangled in tree roots. She turned around and asked, where am I?
If you have thoughts about the show, send us an email. We're at unexplainable at vox.com, and we'd love to hear your thoughts, your criticisms, and any suggestions. And if you can, please leave us a review or rating wherever you listen. It really helps us find new listeners. This podcast and all of Vox is free, in part because of gifts from our readers and our listeners. And you can go to vox.com slash give to give today. Unexplainable is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network, and we'll be right here next Wednesday.
And last thing, before we go, just to give you a little preview for Monday, here's a friend of the show experiencing totality at the last North American eclipse in 2017. Whoa, look over there, look over there. Whoa. Oh my God, that is so... Wait, you gotta readjust this. Oh my God. That is so cool. Oh my God. Are you kidding me?
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And I'm hosting a new podcast at Vox that'll be your go-to hotline for answers to the questions you don't know how to answer. Email a voice memo to askvox at vox.com or call 1-800-618-3545. I promise you it's better than asking ChatGPT.