How You Can Participate in Solar Eclipse Research

Humans are lucky to live on a planet whose sun and moon appear, from our perspective on the ground, the same size in the sky. Every year and a half, on average, our gray satellite slides in front of our friendly neighborhood star, completely blocking its light somewhere on Earth: voilà, total eclipse.

One such event will occur on April 8, 2024. This total eclipse will move across North America from Mexico to Canada, passing through parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York State, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine in between.

Millions of people in the U.S. will see the eclipse. But they can do more than just watch: they can participate. Because the eclipse will darken the doors of so many, it is a perfect opportunity for a form of inclusive, open-to-anybody research sometimes called “citizen science.” Below are four NASA-funded projects that eclipse chasers can sign up for in order to contribute to earthlings’ understanding of both the nearest star and our home planet.

Read more – Scientific American: