19 August, 2017
This energy diversity is critical because our energy system has to function through more and more frequent challenges, like extreme cold and polar vortices, water droughts and low mountain snowpack, heat waves with wind doldrums and other problems. "We will see a temperature drop where totality happens", he said, referring to the path the eclipse will take across the USA where the sun will be completely blocked out.
Unless the Sun is completely covered by the Moon, you really shouldn't look at it directly.
When the moon passes in front of the sun.
Why should I care?
This is the first time that the United States will witness a total solar eclipse since 1918. We were in Australia for the last one and we noticed the birds stopped chirping. As a result, New Jersey's eclipse will be a 75% blockage.There is only one safe way to look directly at the sun, whether during an eclipse or not: through special-purpose solar filters. The next solar eclipse visible in San Diego will occur in 2023. Millions of Americans across a 70-mile-wide (113-kilometer) corridor from OR to SC will see the sky darken as the sun disappears from view, albeit for only a few minutes at a time.
"Confusion between viewing the corona vs the sun's core is increasingly likely during the brief transition from partial to total eclipse and then back to partial eclipse", write researchers from The Vanderbilt Eye Institute, TN, in a Viewpoint published in JAMA Ophthalmology. Not too far off you'll see Spica, the brightest star in the constellation of Virgo.
It gets dark and it's not quite the same as when it gets dark at night. Sorry, you'll have to travel way south or west for that. In Tucson the eclipse starts at 9:16 a.m. and is at maximum at 10:36 a.m.
The sun will progress from nearly due south (about 190 degrees) to west-southwest (about 250 degrees) over the course of the eclipse.
The Weather Channel is throwing an all-day eclipse party beginning early in the morning and checking in with seven different locations in the "path of totality' throughout the day". If you want to get technical, the sun's elevation will be about 54 degrees - a little above the halfway point between the horizon and directly overhead. This is less than an hour from Grand Teton National Park, which is also offering special eclipse viewing areas and is where bison (above), elk, moose and grizzly bears roam.
How do you keep the lights on when the sun suddenly goes out?