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Scientists Share Early Results from NASA’s Solar Eclipse Experiments
- On April 8, 2024, a total solar eclipse swept across North America, from the western shores of Mexico, through the United States, and into northeastern Canada.
- On dec. 10 in Washington, D.C., scientists attending the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union reported some early results from a few of these eclipse experiments.
- The Citizen CATE 2024 project stationed 35 observing teams to capture images of the Sun’s outer atmosphere during totality.
- On board were cameras which captured detailed images of the corona, and the spectrometers, which were located in the nose of the aircraft, were not affected.
- Radio communications inside and outside the path of totality improved at some frequencies, showing there was a reduction in ionospheric absorption. At higher frequencies, communications worsened.
- This research, conducted by over 800 students, confirmed that eclipses can generate ripples in Earth’s atmosphere called atmospheric gravity waves.
- Scientists think the trigger for these waves is a “hiccup” in the tropopause, a layer in Earth’s atmosphere, similar to an atmospheric effect that is observed during sunset.
- Their goal is to see how the corona changed as totality swept across the continent.
- Scientists are already planning to fly similar experiments on the aircraft again.
- Their efforts were a crucial part of the Heliophysics Big Year – helping us to learn more about the Sun and how it affects Earth’s atmosphere when our star’s light temporarily disappears from view.
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