Jim Sharkey

August 22nd, 2017

Photographers setting up outside the NASA Ames Conference Center for the 2017 eclipse viewing event. Photo Credit: Jim Sharkey / SpaceFlight Insider

MOFFETT FIELD, California A crowd of about 1,000 people attended a public event at NASAs Ames Research Center to observe the August 21, 2017, solar eclipse. Attendees gathered outside the Building 3 Conference Center at Ames wearing eclipse glasses provided by the space agency. Inside the Conference Center, attendees could watch NASA TVs extensive coverage of the celestial event.

Image Credit: Vikash Mahadeo / SpaceFlight Insider

The eclipse crossed the continental United States, from Oregon all the way down to South Carolina, over a period encompassing almost two hours. People watching in the 70-mile-wide (110 km) path of totality across 14 states experienced about two minutes of darkness.

Those watching at NASA Ames saw a partial eclipse, with a coverage of approximately 74 percent of the Sun occurring at 10:15 a.m. PDT.

NASAs televised coverage of the eclipse included views from research aircraft, high-altitude balloons, satellites, and specially modified telescopes. It also included live reports from Charleston, South Carolina; Salem, Oregon; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Beatrice, Nebraska; Jefferson City, Missouri; Carbondale, Illinois; Hopkinsville, Kentucky; and Clarksville, Tennessee.

NASAs Eclipse Balloon Project,which was led by Angela Des Jardins of Montana State University, sent up over 50 high-altitude balloons launched by student teams across the U.S. to live-stream footage of the eclipse. A research group at Ames conducted a low-cost experiment,called MicroStrat, on 34 of the balloons to simulate lifes ability to survive beyond Earth and possibly even on Mars.

The August solar eclipse gives us a rare opportunity to study the stratosphere when its even more Mars-like than usual, said Jim Green, director of planetary science at NASA Headquarters. With student teams flying balloon payloads from dozens of points along the path of totality, well study effects on microorganisms that are coming along for the ride.

Some of the first views of the eclipse were provided by a specially-modified Gulfstream III jet from NASAs Armstrong Flight Research Center flying at an altitude of approximately 25,000 feet (7,620 meters) in the vicinity of Lincoln City, Oregon.

The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) mission is studying how solar material moves, gathersenergy, and heats up as it travels through the Suns lower atmosphere. IRIS Flight Operators were at the event to discuss their mission, which is controlled from Ames.

During the eclipse, we can do calibrations on some scientific instruments that we cant do at any over time, said Flight Operator Michael Iatauro. We are also coordinating our observations with ground-based and aerial telescopes. When they are observing the Suns corona during the eclipse, we can observe activities occurring on parts of the Sun that are blocked by the Moon from their point of view.

As the eclipse began at 9:01 a.m. PDT, gray clouds began to drift in front of the Sun. For much of the next hour, the Sun peeked through the clouds occasionally; however, by the time the eclipse reached maximum coverage at 10:15 a.m. PDT, a large portion of the sky had cleared allowing observers to see the crescent Sun.

Video courtesy of NASA

Tagged: Ames Research Center Eclipse 2017 Great American Eclipse The Range

Jim Sharkey is a lab assistant, writer and general science enthusiast who grew up in Enid, Oklahoma, the hometown of Skylab and Shuttle astronaut Owen K. Garriott. As a young Star Trek fan he participated in the letter-writing campaign which resulted in the space shuttle prototype being named Enterprise. While his academic studies have ranged from psychology and archaeology to biology, he has never lost his passion for space exploration. Jim began blogging about science, science fiction and futurism in 2004. Jim resides in the San Francisco Bay area and has attended NASA Socials for the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover landing and the NASA LADEE lunar orbiter launch.

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NASA Ames hosts eclipse viewing event - SpaceFlight Insider