Rudi Keller @CDTCivilWar

Stardust has a magical appeal for poets.

Hoagy Carmichaels 1927 song of that name has been recorded more than 1,500 times. Hello Poetry has a seemingly endless page of entries online devoted to it.

And in 1969, Joni Mitchell wrote we are stardust, we are golden, we are million year old carbon in her ode to the music festival at Woodstock.

Angela Speck, the University of Missouris director of astronomy, is StardustSpeck on Twitter and when shes not cheering for the public to look up at 1:12 p.m. Monday to see the total solar eclipse, she studies the stuff that poets prize.

My work is on determining what dust forms, trying to understand why that sort of dust forms and then what is the knock-on effect once youve got that sort of dust, Speck said.

Unfortunately, she said, shes neglected that research.

I really havent done any of my own research for quite some time, Speck said. It will be a relief to get back to it.

For more than three years, Specks time has been consumed by the eclipse. She is a co-chair of the American Astronomical Societys Solar Eclipse Task Force. In November 2015, she predicted Columbia should prepare for 400,000 visitors. The estimates have fallen but she still expects the city to double in population or more on Monday.

That number of visitors would be almost double the largest crowdto see a football game at Memorial Stadium.

Im exhausted. I am so exhausted, Speck said. I am excited. I am waiting for it to come but I would like it to be tomorrow. I want to see it. It is going to be awesome.

Just for the record, the total solar eclipse on Monday will be the first visible in the continental United States since 1979 and the first to cross the continent since 1918. At Broadway and Providence Road in Columbia, the eclipse will begin at 11:45 a.m. as the moon and sun begin to come into alignment. It will reach totality at 21 seconds past 1:12 p.m. The sun will be covered by the moon for 2 minutes and 36 seconds, covering the land in darkness. The eclipse will conclude at 2:40 p.m.

Speck grew up in Yorkshire, England, and attended Queen Mary University in London for undergraduate studies and received her doctorate from University College London.

Specks interest in space began in her childhood, her parents said. Alan Speck, visiting for the eclipse, said he recalls a ride with a friend to Queensbury one day.

It was one of those days when the moon was in the sky at daylight and she explained to us the physical properties as to why the moon was shining in the daylight sky, he said. She was 5 years old.

Her mother, Wendy Speck, attributed the interest to watching a lot of science fiction movies.

Angela Speck said her ambition at that age was to be an astronaut.

It was post Apollo but before the Voyagers were launched, she said. The space mission stuff was still kind of big. I have no recollection of why but I said this is what I am going to do.

Specks career trajectory veered off course for space travel into research and teaching. And it is almost a random occurrence that shes on the MU faculty. She and her husband Alan Whittington applied at several universities.

She was hired as a spousal accommodation when Whittington, now chair of the geology department, was hired.

We both got offered jobs, but Mizzou was the place where we both got to be faculty, Speck said.

Much of Specks time is spent alternately warning that huge crowds would flock to see total eclipse and debunking ridiculous claims and predictions.

Actually an eclipse day is no different from any other day, in terms of what the sun and the moon are doing, Speck said. Theyve got it in their head that this is doing something weird to the earth. No, not really.

There is an eclipse of the sun almost every year, somewhere on earth, Speck said. But the occurrence of a total solar eclipse at any particular location is rare.

The area today called Boone County has not experienced a total solar eclipse since July 7, 1442, and will not see another until June 3, 2505. The next total solar eclipse visible in Missouri will cross the Bootheel on April 8, 2024.

During a news conference for NASA, Speck was asked if animals needed special protection from the eclipse. She replied that animals dont look at the sun when it is not in eclipse and she didnt expect that to change.

Youre sure we dont need to protect animals? she recalled being asked. Im like yeah, I am pretty sure. If you have got a beastie that is particularly sensitive, they dont like it when you switch the light off in the house, then they probably wont like it when the sun gets in the way.

An internet search on Specks name reveals 430 entries in Googles news category. Shes a colorful speaker and journalists love a good quote.

Eclipses are usually in places that are hard to get to, Speck told Wired, just because most of the planet is places that are hard to get to.

She told Space.com that the crowded conditions could resemble a zombie apocalypse. There will hopefully be less bloodshed, but zombies don't need regular food, or sleep, or toilets," Speck said.

Her sons, 10 and 13, havent taken much notice of their mothers celebrity, she said.

They have had a couple of my mom is talking to my class, moments, she said.

On Monday, Speck will do color commentary for KMIZ-TVs eclipse broadcast. She may just be silent when the big moment finally arrives, she said.

But I am loud, so theres a good chance I will want to go, Ooh, look at that, look at that, look at that.

rkeller@columbiatribune.com

573-815-1709

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MU director of astronomy Angela Speck consumed by eclipse for three years - Columbia Daily Tribune