Great American Eclipse 101: Bill Nye and Two Astronomy Whiz Kids … – Parade

Magazine August 4, 2017 5:00 AM ByNeil Pond Parade @NeilPond More by Neil

Everyone will be looking up on Monday, August 21, when whats being called the Great American Eclipse sweeps across the U.S.

I really encourage you to be in a place where you can see the total solar eclipse, says Bill Nye, known as the Science Guy from his popular 1990s-era PBS kids show. This one moment where the Earth, moon and sun are in a lineit really is spectacular, says Nye, 61, who serves as the CEO of the Planetary Society in Pasadena, California, and is star of Bill Nye Saves the World on Netflix.

Check out these eclipse must-knows from Nye and astronomy whiz kids Cannan and Carson Huey-You.

Related: Cannan and Carson Huey-You Interview Bill Nye the Science Guy

The sunlight filtering around the advancing moon creates alternating bands of light and dark on the ground racing across the land. Its crazy; theyre several football fields wide, and they move over you. Its otherworldly and spooky, Nye says.

This aura of gasses that surrounds the sun and shoots out into space for millions of miles is spectacularly visible to the unaided eye as a brilliant, glowing halo during the total eclipse.

The amount of time it will take for the eclipse to zoom across the entire continent.

The longest anyone, anywhere will be able to witness its totalitythats in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

Unlike most other total eclipses, the 2017 eclipse will cross directly overheador nearbymany major population areas. Its going right across the United States, Nye says. Take a felt-tip marker and draw from Oregon to Georgia, and there it is.

Thats how long ago the previous coast-to-coast solar eclipse was last seen in the U.S. There will be another total solar eclipse in July 2019, but it will be visible only in parts of Argentina and Chile. The truth is, eclipses arent all that rare. Total solar eclipses occur every two years, says Nye, author of the just-released Everything All at Once. They come in pairs. Theyre more frequent than presidential elections! Most are visible only to relatively few people or from places where many people cant easily goremote mountaintops, the middle of an ocean, unpopulated areas hundreds or thousands of miles away from anything else. That makes the 2017 eclipse extra special.

During the total eclipse, as the light from the sun is blocked, these points of light begin to appear as sunlight streams through the valleys of the moons horizon.

In a total eclipse, the moons shadow flies across the face of the planet at supersonic speed. Thats fastalmost as fast as it took Carson Huey-You and his younger brother, Cannan, science-minded kid geniuses in the Dallas area, to zip far ahead academically of most kids their age.

Carson, 15, enrolled in Texas Christian University when he was 11 and graduated in May with a degree in physics and minors in math and Chinese. He plans to continue with graduate studies in physics toward a masters degree and ultimately a doctorate. Cannan, 11, will enter TCU this fall to study engineering and astrophysics.

Here are 10 things Carson and Cannan want you to know about the upcoming eclipse.

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Great American Eclipse 101: Bill Nye and Two Astronomy Whiz Kids ... - Parade