{"id":63864,"date":"2017-08-16T16:44:43","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T02:44:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=63864"},"modified":"2020-08-07T14:35:09","modified_gmt":"2020-08-08T00:35:09","slug":"solar-eclipse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2017\/08\/16\/solar-eclipse\/","title":{"rendered":"Total solar eclipse illuminated by <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> astronomers"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading time: <\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 2<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]\n<div class=\"responsive-video-wrap\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border:0;\" title=\"YouTube player\" width=\"676\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3KP0J1w7O9E?rel=0&amp;showinfo=0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>During 2017\u2019s total solar eclipse, the first to cross North America since 1918, <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> will be well represented by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ifa.hawaii.edu\/\">Institute for Astronomy<\/a> astronomer <a href=\"https:\/\/people.ifa.hawaii.edu\/faculty\/bio\/shadia-habbal\/\"><strong>Shadia Rifai Habbal<\/strong><\/a> and other University of <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> scientists. When the moon completely blocks the sun, Habbal\u2019s team of international scientists will collect data as they have done during 14 eclipses since 1995.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Witnessing the event&#8212;which happens over an hour, when you are going from full daylight to nighttime&#8212;all of sudden you are immersed in darkness and you see this bright corona shimmering in the sky, it is something very, very unique,&rdquo; Habbal says.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_63885\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-63885\" style=\"width: 260px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/manoa-ifa-habbal-s.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/manoa-ifa-habbal-s-260x146.jpg\" alt=\"Habbal examining telescope and cameras\" width=\"260\" height=\"146\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-63885\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/manoa-ifa-habbal-s-260x146.jpg 260w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/manoa-ifa-habbal-s-630x353.jpg 630w, https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/manoa-ifa-habbal-s.jpg 676w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 260px) 100vw, 260px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-63885\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Shadia Rifai Habbal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Solar eclipses occur when the moon is directly between the Earth and the sun. The sun is 400 times wider than the moon, but also 400 times farther away. As a result, the moon and the sun are the same size in our sky. When the moon is exactly between the Earth and the sun, the moon completely blocks the sun from view. Astronomers call this a total solar eclipse. Total eclipses last one to eight minutes in a given location, providing scientists with a golden opportunity to explore one of the mysteries of this universe.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;One of the big puzzles about the sun is that the surface temperature is about six thousand degrees. But then when you get the to corona it is several million,&rdquo; Habbal explains.<\/p>\n<p>To help to crack that puzzle, Habbal\u2019s team will be using the spectrometers at five different sites to study the solar wind or gasses escaping from the sun.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;It tells us something about the whole universe and the formation of solar systems,&rdquo; says Habbal. &ldquo;So it\u2019s a very profound idea and concept that we\u2019re exploring.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> will be in a position to view only a partial eclipse around 6:35 a.m. on August 21, however, the warning not to look directly at the sun still applies.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Benjamin Boe<\/strong>, a graduate student studying with Habbal, says, &ldquo;Don\u2019t stare at the sun, please wear solar glasses. If not, a doable, easy solution is just take a piece of cardboard, poke a small hole in it. You can put another piece of paper behind it and project an image of the sun onto a piece of paper and that way you can see the crescent sun without actually having to look at it.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h2>Viewing the solar eclipse online<\/h2>\n<p>The public can also safely view the solar eclipse in Hilo or online. <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> Hilo Instructor <a href=\"http:\/\/astro.uhh.hawaii.edu\/faculty.php#jhamilton\"><strong>John Hamilton<\/strong><\/a> and Lecturer <a href=\"http:\/\/astro.uhh.hawaii.edu\/faculty.php#mroberts\"><strong>Marc Roberts<\/strong><\/a> will be observing the eclipse from the Lost River Field Station near Mackay, Idaho, one of the official <abbr title=\"National Aeronautics and Space Administration\">NASA<\/abbr> viewing sites. They plan on live broadcasting the eclipse via the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=_UNu29TXIxg\"><abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo YouTube channel<\/a>. &ldquo;Seeing a total solar eclipse is an incredible experience and we are excited to share the opportunity, even remotely, with <abbr>UH<\/abbr> students,&rdquo; says Hamilton.<\/p>\n<p><abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo\u2019s astronomy department has planned an event hosted by Associate Professor <a href=\"http:\/\/astro.uhh.hawaii.edu\/faculty.php#hkaluna\"><strong>Heather Kaluna<\/strong><\/a> to view the eclipse via live feed at the Science and Technology Building on the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo campus starting at 6 a.m.<\/p>\n<p>For those unable to attend the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo event, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mkaoc.org\">Maunakea Observatories Astronomy Outreach Committee<\/a> will broadcast the <abbr>UH<\/abbr> Hilo feed live on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mkaoc.org\">their website<\/a>.<\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n<p><em>&#8212;By Kelli Trifonovitch<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During this year\u2019s total solar eclipse, the first to cross North America since 1918, <span aria-label=\"Hawaii\">Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> will be well represented by <abbr title=\"University of Hawaii\">UH<\/abbr> scientists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,12],"tags":[34,35,545,14,9,56],"class_list":["post-63864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research","category-video","tag-astronomy","tag-institute-for-astronomy","tag-physics-and-astronomy","tag-uh-hilo","tag-uh-manoa","tag-video-2","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63864"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":124664,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63864\/revisions\/124664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}