Block Out the Star to See Life
Achieving totality with astrophysicists in Idaho
In Weiser, Idaho, a tribe of astrophysicists whooped and danced as the moon blocked out the sun. They were ostensibly in town for a Exoclipse, a conference at Boise State on exoplanets, but that was just an excuse to witness totality with other astrophysicists from around the globe.
I had been traveling with one of them, Daniel Angerhausen, for two weeks. Angerhausen, another astrophysicist named Gavin Coleman, and I gaped at the sky from a grassy patch next to the track of a local high school. In the distance, two spiders the size of tractor trailers trawled the yellow hills.
For 90 minutes, the sun wrestled the moon. Pinned for two full minutes, the sun flailed its coronal arms like a trapped jellyfish. It was the first time in 38 years that such a thing had been visible in the lower 48. Not since 1918 had a solar eclipse transited the United States from coast to coast.
Why Astrophysicists Care About Eclipses
Astronomers are interested in eclipses for many reasons, but most involve opportunities to view stuff that’s obscured by the brightness of the sun. The sun’s corona, for example, is much larger and hotter than the sun itself, and no one knows why. A total solar eclipse is the…
