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NASA is inviting students of all ages nationwide who are interested in the science of space travel to participate in an essay contest. Winners will earn a trip to NASA’s research center in Cleveland. The agency launched its fourth annual Power to Explore Student Challenge, a writing contest for U.S. students from kindergarten through 12th grade aimed at educating them about its space missions.

Students are tasked with writing an essay about a new nuclear-powered mission to a moon in a solar system of their choice. The essays should include where each student would go, what they plan to explore and how they would use radioisotope power systems, a type of nuclear battery, to achieve their mission in the cold and dark space environment. The deadline is Jan. 31, 2025.

The winners from each of three grade categories will receive a trip for two to NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland to learn about the personnel and technology that make its space missions possible.

“It’s a great opportunity,” said Rene Harris, founder and director of STEM Prep Academy North Philadelphia. While she thinks the prize of a trip to NASA will be enticing to students interested in STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) subjects, Harris said she worries that students from schools that haven’t been exposed to STEM classes might be reluctant to enter the contest.

A graduate of Cheyney University, Harris volunteered at Franklin Institute while in grade school, visited NASA Space Center in Houston, and later landed a National Science Foundation scholarship in 2022. She earned a Master’s degree in Science from the University of Pennsylvania.

Harris said she wanted to become a doctor and studied biology, but ultimately became a STEM professional and then a biology teacher before she opened the school.

Founded during the pandemic in 2020, STEM Prep Academy’s mission is to nourish interest in STEM among pre-school and kindergarten students, focusing on children from 2-6 years old.

On Monday night, serious moon viewers may notice something different about the moon — if you look hard enough.

The full moon will be a blue supermoon, a celestial occurrence that combines two events: a supermoon, which is when the moon is closest to the Earth; and a blue moon, the third of fourth full moons in a single season.

The cosmic event usually happens about once every 10 years, but there was a super blue moon last August as well. NASA determined that the moon had met the criteria for this seemingly rare event two years in a row.

How to see Monday’s blue supermoonMonday’s supermoon will reach its full peak at 2:26 p.m. EDT, according to NASA, but you might not even notice the difference that night if you aren’t careful.

“I personally can’t tell the difference between a supermoon and a regular moon,” Fred Espenak, a scientist emeritus for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, told Morning Edition. “And I’ve been looking at the moon all my life.”

If you’re after a large moon view, you can watch the moon rise or set in your area. The moon will appear bigger if you watch it rise in the east, or watch the moon set in the west. The larger moon, combined with foreground objects in your area will create a “moon illusion” and make the moon appear bigger.

You can check the local rising and setting times for your area using the U.S. Navy’s Moonrise calendar.

If you want a more detailed view of the moon, you can use a telescope or a pair of binoculars. The moon will appear full for three days, according to NASA, but only Monday’s will be a true supermoon.

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Not too long ago, most human beings who journeyed into space were career astronauts — rigorously trained professionals, screened and prepared to leave Earth’s atmosphere at great speeds atop enormous rockets.

Today, more civilians are making that trip with companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which plans to send people to Mars someday.

But as space tourism heats up, what does “fit for flight” really mean for people who are not trained astronauts?

“We probably can’t use the same criteria we use for career astronauts because these [civilian] trips are going to be relatively short,” said Dr. Mathias Basner, a psychiatry professor at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. “The criteria can probably be somewhat relaxed. The question is, to what degree?”

That’s what Penn medical researchers like Basner and others worldwide are trying to figure out by studying the physical and mental health effects of spaceflight among average people.

Penn researchers and other scientists published their findings in 44 papers this week in the journal Nature. The data is part of a larger research initiative with the Translational Research Institute for Space Health (TRISH) and NASA.

“Our everyday functioning is comprised of all of these different functions of the brain that work simultaneously,” Basner said. “So we try to learn, which of these are actually most affected by spaceflight and what could it mean?”

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Mia Sasser, 15, has always dreamed of working in space science. The ninth-grader’s room is plastered with photos of rovers and images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

“This has been my passion since I was little,” Sasser said. “I love astronomy, space, engineering.”

Mia Sasser examines part of the students’ experiment for the NASA TechRise Challenge. (Emily Neil/WHYY)Thanks to the NASA TechRise challenge, Sasser and three Lenape Middle School classmates are taking a step that might blast them off into STEM careers.

The Central Bucks School District students’ team was one of 60 nationwide who won the chance to participate in the challenge. Now in its third year, the competition is designed for sixth- through 12th-grade students. The team worked with Jennifer Conver, a gifted support teacher at Lenape Middle School, and mentors from NASA and built a rocket-powered lander that NASA scientists will test on a surface designed to look like the moon.

Sasser and fellow ninth-graders Kayleigh Razon, 15, Emma Lofts, 15, and Aanika Oka, 15, have worked together since January to build what they call the SOBIE experiment. SOBIE stands for surface object identification.

From left, Mia Sasser, Emma Lofts, Kayleigh Razon, and Aanika Oka, ninth-graders at Lenape Middle School, pose for a photo. The students won the opportunity to build an experiment through the NASA TechRise Challenge. (Courtesy of Jennifer Conver)The payload features a dash camera with proximity sensors and UV sensors that measure GPS location and other data. Once placed on the rocket, the lander will scan the surface and store data on an SD card, which team members will use to sort through the data manually once it’s returned to them.

“So basically, we have this payload, right, and we’re filling it with different components that are going to be able to identify objects over a surface area,” Lofts explained. “We’re going to send it out and they’re going to then start the experiment. And then it’s going to take in data and then identify different anomalies within that path.”

From left, Kayleigh Razon, Mia Sasser and Emma Lofts examine their experiment for the NASA TechRise Challenge. (Emily Neil/WHYY)Sasser said with the dashcam, GPS and other sensors, they will be able to map out where certain anomalies and objects are. The next step, if they were going to continue to build out the experiment, would be to create an algorithm so that data could be processed automatically without the students having to analyze and map it manually.

This kind of challenge is especially important for girls interested in exploring STEM and science, Razon said.

The first crewed launch of Boeing’s troubled Starliner spacecraft has been delayed again, to May 25, this time because of a helium leak in the service module.

NASA had set the liftoff for May 21 after scrubbing a May 6 launch but the helium leak was discovered on Wednesday. While the agency said the leak in the craft’s thruster system was stable and wouldn’t pose a risk during the flight, “Boeing teams are working to develop operational procedures to ensure the system retains sufficient performance capability and appropriate redundancy during the flight.”

While that work is going on, NASA said its Commercial Crew Program (CCP) and the International Space Station Program will review data and procedures before making a final determination whether to proceed with a countdown.

The delay is the latest for the Starliner’s first crewed mission, which will carry NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams to the International Space Station. The astronauts are to spend about a week aboard the space station before making a parachute and airbag-assisted landing in the southwestern U.S.

If that mission is successful, NASA will begin the final process to certify Starliner for crewed rotation missions to the space station.

The delay comes roughly a decade after NASA awarded Boeing a more than $4 billion contract as part of the agency’s Commercial Crew Program, which pays private companies to ferry astronauts to and from the space station after the space shuttle was retired in 2011.

SpaceX, which was also awarded a $2 billion contract under the CCP initiative, has flown eight crewed missions for NASA and another four private, crewed spaceflights since 2020.

A history of delays and design problemsBut the Starliner program has been plagued with delays and design problems for several years.

It failed to reach the space station during its first mission in 2019 after its onboard clock, which was set incorrectly, caused a computer to fire the capsule’s engines too early. The spacecraft successfully docked with the space station during its second test flight in 2022, despite the failure of some thrusters during the launch.

Boeing then scrapped the planned launch of the Starliner’s first crewed flight last year, after company officials realized that adhesive tape used on the craft to wrap hundreds of yards of wiring was flammable, and lines connecting the capsule to its three parachutes appeared to be weaker than expected. The launch was delayed indefinitely.

The May 6 launch was scrubbed because of a faulty oxygen relief valve, NASA said.

Wilmore and Williams remain quarantined in Houston and will fly back to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida closer to the new launch date, NASA said. The Starliner, which sits atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, remains in the Vertical Integration Facility at Space Launch Complex 41 on Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.

Boeing has faced intense scrutiny this year on the commercial aviation side of its business after a rear door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines flight shortly after takeoff in January.

Whistleblowers have since come forward to detail alleged quality control lapses at the storied company, and the Federal Aviation Administration said it was auditing Boeing’s production. The Justice Department also announced it would open a criminal investigation into the Alaska Airlines incident.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

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Some local researchers from Drexel University and the University of Delaware are back from the path of totality with a partial win after traveling to upstate New York and Texas to conduct research during the solar eclipse on Monday.

The two teams are part of a nationwide eclipse ballooning project from NASA, which sent weather balloons with sensors tens of thousands of meters into the atmosphere. The project included more than 50 teams with hundreds of participants across the country. The goal was to have the balloons in place high in the atmosphere during the precious few minutes of a total solar eclipse, so they could do some research under those unique conditions. The next total solar eclipse over the U.S. will be in 2044.

The teams started preparing their equipment and procedures many months ago, including launches during an annular eclipse in Texas last October. The practice runs paid off: They successfully launched their balloons during the total solar eclipse and are now working to get the balloons and sensors back.

The team from Drexel and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy tethered their balloons while waiting for the total solar eclipse. (Richard Cairncross)The group from Drexel University and Springside Chestnut Hill Academy went to Old Forge, New York, in the northern part of the state. On Monday morning, they had some concerns that the strong winds would blow their balloons off the path of totality but managed to launch their first balloon to the altitude they were aiming for.

Kiana Ahmari, a chemical engineering student at Drexel, said it was an amazing experience.

“Honestly, I feel relieved,” she said. “This has been in the works since January last year. I’m just excited to look at what data we ended up getting out of this.”

Whether you saw the moon completely block the sun, were foiled by cloudy weather or weren’t along the path of Monday’s total solar eclipse, there are still more chances to catch a glimpse.

Here’s what to know about upcoming solar spectacles:

When is the next total solar eclipse?Total solar eclipses happen about every year or two or three, due to a precise alignment of the sun, moon and Earth. They can occur anywhere across the globe, usually in remote areas like the South Pacific.

Save the date: The next full solar eclipse, in 2026, will pass over the northern fringes of Greenland, Iceland and Spain.

When will the next totality be visible from the U.S.?The next U.S. taste of totality comes in 2033 when an eclipse brushes Alaska and Russia. And in 2044, one will cross Greenland and western Canada, touching swaths of North Dakota and Montana.

An eclipse on the scale of Monday’s event won’t happen again until Aug. 12, 2045.

“But it will be pretty spectacular,” said Mary Urquhart, a planetary scientist at the University of Texas at Dallas. “It’s going to go coast to coast.”

That eclipse will first greet viewers in Northern California, slicing through Utah, Colorado and Mississippi on its way to Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Mother Nature may have been playing a joke on Philadelphia on Monday.

About 45 minutes before the peak of Philly’s 90% eclipse, the sun was shining through light clouds and haze. About 45 minutes afterward the sun was out again.

But for most of the time that the moon passed over the sun, dark cloud cover obscured the show.

A thick cloud cover obscured most of the eclipse experience in Philadelphia. (Peter Crimmins/WHYY)“It’s disappointing,” said Anita Pignataro, 82, who came out to the Parkway because she felt it may be her last opportunity to witness the celestial phenomenon. She kept scanning the sky wearing her dark eclipse eye protection hoping to catch a glimpse of a crescent sun.

Pignataro was bothered that she didn’t see the eclipse, but it was worth the effort.

“There’s a sense of community,” she said. “A sense of coming together.”

This story originally appeared on 6abc.

The peak of the 2024 solar eclipse has come and gone from the Philadelphia region, and your view of the phenomenon depended on whether the clouds would cooperate.

At the Franklin Institute in Center City Philadelphia, the clouds thickened just as we reached maximum coverage.

A sliver of sun is visible through a screen of clouds to viewers watching the solar eclipse outside the Franklin Institute in Center City Philadelphia. (Emma Lee/WHYY)However, some brief breaks in the clouds allowed those gathered there to catch a glimpse.

In fact, so many people came out they ran out of eclipse viewing glasses early.

Meanwhile, Action News was there as people cheered at West Chester University when the clouds broke and the crowd could see the sun and moon — mostly — lining up together.

People fanned out onto the lawn in South Campus to gather together and look into the sky.

“It’s cool to see the unification on campus,” said WCU junior Justin Duffie.

Meanwhile, Paul Rabe says he witnessed his first solar eclipse when he was an 11-year-old in 1965.

“I just loved looking up at the sky,” she said. “I love stars, I love meteors, as far back as I can remember.

While it wasn’t a total eclipse, our area still saw about 90% coverage.

Tens of millions of Americans will have spent the day staring at a total solar eclipse, and at least a few of them may become worried that they inadvertently damaged their eyes.

But experts say there’s no need to panic — the vast majority of eclipse viewers are probably fine. And even if somebody did strain their eyes, the effects could be temporary.

During the 2017 total solar eclipse it’s estimated that 150 million Americans viewed the event. There were perhaps 100 cases of eye damage across all of America and Canada, according to Ralph Chou, an expert on eclipse eye safety with the University of Waterloo in Canada.

Far more people turned up in emergency rooms worried that they’d damaged their eyes. Many complained of watery eyes or blurred vision, but in most cases they were fine, according to Avnish Deobhakta an ophthalmologist at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, one of the largest eye hospitals in the nation.

The reason it’s hard to do real damage is simple — the human eye has evolved to avoid staring directly at the sun.

“It’s so bright that we’re not actually capable of looking at it without either tearing or sort of not really feeling comfortable staring at this ball of light,” Deobhakta says.

In the rare case that someone does damage their eyes, that damage usually shows up as a blurry spot in the field of vision, hours or up to a day after watching the eclipse. In about half of cases, the problem fixes itself, but permanent damage can sometimes occur.

Anticipating the post-eclipse ocular anxiety, at least one eye clinic in Buffalo, N.Y. is offering free eye checks immediately after the eclipse on April 8.

It’s always a good idea to get your eyes checked, whether or not there’s an eclipse. So if you’re worried at all, go ahead and use the opportunity to schedule your annual exam.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

If you live along the path of totality for Monday’s solar eclipse and you have any Christmas or Hanukkah gear, you might want to break it out. The celestial event will bring odd phenomena to our planet — including changes in how people see colors such as red, green and blue.

Here’s a look at some of the unusual visual effects a solar eclipse brings to humans on Earth:

Red and green colors will look strangeThat’s partly due to the change in light when the moon blocks the sun, but also the way our eyes and brain adjust to and interpret that change.

As light dims, our eyes transition from photopic vision, associated with the retina’s cone cells that deliver full colors and fine detail, toward scotopic night vision that relies on rod cells to detect objects in low light. In the middle is mesopic vision, the transitional phase where both rods and cones are active.

When the light’s intensity dims in the eclipse, colors with longer wavelengths, like red, will look darker as cones become less active. But because rods are sensitive to the shorter blue-green wavelengths, those colors will have a chance to shine.

“This is pretty much a totality thing,” Erika Grundstrom, director of astronomy labs at Vanderbilt University, told NPR, with only people in the eclipse’s central path guaranteed to witness the phenomenon.

Also, she said, you shouldn’t rely on just one red or green T-shirt to trigger the effect.

“You have to have lots of people (or colorful things) around to see it,” Grundstrom said via email, adding, “the effect is the result of sudden dimness and your rods and cones trying to make sense of that dimness.”

It’s called the Purkinje effect.

The what?The Purkinje effect, aka the Purkinje phenomenon or shift, was documented some 200 years ago by Johannes Evangelista Purkinje, a Bohemian scientist who noticed that when light passed through a prism in dimming conditions, the brightest spot moved — shifting away from red and toward blue, on the shorter end of the wavelength spectrum.

The effect has been studied in the years since — including during the famous 1919 total solar eclipse that gave scientists important observations affirming Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

The dimness should become more noticeable about 15 minutes before the eclipse reaches totality. To many people, the light takes on a metallic or silvery quality.

Some shadows will sharpen; others will alterFor one thing, your own shadow will be different.

“The change in lighting makes shadows look sharper on the ground, so it’s possible to see individual hairs on your head in your shadow,” according to the European Space Agency.

And if you see the sun’s light coming through tight gaps in trees, you might notice lots of little crescents. As the ESA says, “The tiny gaps in the leaves will act like multiple pinhole cameras, projecting the Sun’s image to the ground.”

People in the eclipse’s path can also see an odd shimmering called shadow bands.

“A minute or two before totality, ripples of light may flow across the ground and walls as Earth’s turbulent atmosphere refracts the last rays of sunlight,” as the EarthSky website said in 2017.

Other changes to expect include a drop in temperature — and the appearance of colors in the sky that will make it seem as if you’re seeing a sunset (or sunrise) across the full 360 degrees of the horizon.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

A total solar eclipse will cross North America on Monday, giving millions of people from Texas to Maine the chance to see the moon completely block the face of the daytime sun.

And many more outside the 100-mile-wide “path of totality” — every U.S. state, according to NASA — will still see a partial eclipse, in which the moon blocks at least some of the sun.

Scores of Americans are making special plans for the day, from flying across the country to driving across town, ready to don their requisite glasses, look up at the sky and admire a phenomenon the U.S. won’t see again for another 20 years.

NPR asked listeners to share their plans for the day, and followed up with several of the more than 300 who responded.

Here are some of their stories, from the New York parents-to-be planning a themed baby shower to a Texas librarian setting up disco balls to the Michigan mayor waving tourists away.

A farmer will be giving out two kinds of glasses at his breweryTom Barse, owner of Milkhouse Brewery at Stillpoint Farm in Mount Airy, Md., pictured with some of his sheep earlier this month. The brewery is holding its second eclipse viewing event on Monday. (Tom Barse)The Milkhouse Brewery at Stillpoint Farm in Mount Airy, Md., will only get about 90% coverage of the sun on Monday. But it will hold an eclipse-watching party nonetheless — and expecting a big turnout.

“You don’t get the totality, but you can really notice it get darker,” says owner and brewmaster Tom Barse. “It’s very, very cool.”

Barse, 70, is looking forward to hosting those who can’t travel all the way into the path of totality. The brewery will give away free eclipse glasses (the wearing kind, not drinking) for the first 100 attendees. But it’s bracing for many more.

More than 800 people are interested in the event on Facebook. More than 500 people showed up to the brewery’s last eclipse event, in 2017, which Barse says they hosted “on a whim.”

They’re more prepared this time, bringing on extra staff and taps just for the day and expecting a high turnout regardless of the weather. Barse knows from experience that people get really excited about seeing even a partial eclipse.

“It’s a phenomenal thing,” he says. “It’s like 2:30 in the afternoon on a Monday and people skip work and they skip school — it’s like a major holiday.”

A librarian recommends disco balls, citing researchAndrea Warkentin poses with a disco ball at the Round Rock Public Library in Round Rock Texas, which tested out disco balls as projection devices during an October 2023 eclipse. (Andrea Warkentin)Andrea Warkentin, a youth services librarian at the Round Rock Public Library in Texas, is already somewhat of an eclipse-viewing expert.

Round Rock — a city about 20 miles north of Austin — had a front-row view of the annular solar eclipse that passed through Central Texas in October 2023.

At the time, Warkentin worked with a group of scientists researching a novel way of projecting the eclipse for large groups: disco balls.

“We played disco music and we had a good crowd of folks and it worked so well,” says Warkentin, 57. “They were all looking at these big four-inch projections of the eclipse, all were bouncing around, swaying in the wind and on the walls of the library. It was really incredible.”

Their findings were published in the Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society just last month. And Warkentin hopes others will consider using disco balls to enhance their viewing experience on Monday.

One advantage, she says, is that they allow whole groups to see the same thing at the same time (as opposed to looking through individual glasses), creating a shared experience and better conversation.

Warkentin has already set up a disco ball in the library for staffers who work that day. The library itself isn’t hosting a big event: It’s encouraging people to hold eclipse parties at their homes to cut down on traffic and giving out some disco balls to help.

A disco ball placed some 20 meters away outside helped project images on the Round Rock Public Library wall during the October 2023 eclipse.
(Andrea Warkentin)An expecting mom has much to celebrate at her eclipse-themed baby showerHelen Hutchins will celebrate her baby shower with eclipse-themed food and décor. (Helen Hutchins)The eclipse is coming at an exciting moment for Helen Hutchins, who is expecting her first child. She knew she’d be about 33 weeks along by that point — so what better time to throw a baby shower?

“I’m super excited about the solar eclipse and want everybody to take the day off,” she says.

The 31-year-old lives in Oswego, N.Y. She remembers enjoying the partial eclipse in 2017 and says she and her husband were pleasantly surprised to learn that they would be right in the path of totality this time.

“And so pairing the excitement of a child with the excitement of a solar eclipse and having it as an opportunity to loop everybody else in on my excitement for the solar eclipse, we decided to make it a solar eclipse-themed baby shower,” she explains.

They will celebrate on Sunday at a nearby brewery, giving out eclipse glasses, serving half-moon cookies and moon pies and pouring “galaxy drinks.” They plan to watch the eclipse on their deck with friends and family the next day.

Hutchins’ baby — due at the end of May — will be 20 years old the next time the contiguous U.S. experiences a total solar eclipse.

“We’ll be sure to celebrate that one too,” she says. “But it’ll be a ways from now.”

The mayor of a well-placed Michigan town is urging tourists to go to OhioA view of the sunrise over Lake Erie in Luna Pier in November 2021. It’s one of few places in the path of totality in Michigan. (Jim Gardner)Luna Pier, in the far southeast corner of Michigan, sounds like a perfect place to watch the eclipse, and not just because it’s the only city in the entire state in the path of totality.

“A name like Luna Pier — I mean, this is just made for us,” says Mayor Jim Gardner, 65. “We do have a pier out on Lake Erie. We were looking forward to this for so long.”

The city of about 1,400 people has been getting a lot of buzz lately, with national and local press crowning it a top eclipse destination. But there’s one big problem: The bridge on the only road into town over I-75 is being rebuilt and isn’t set to reopen until July.

Gardner says that will make it “nearly impossible to get in and out of the city quickly.”

“We’re getting a lot of phone calls,” Gardner says. “People are asking if the beach is open and the pier is open and it is, but we’re not doing any special celebrations or advertising or parties or anything like that, sadly.”

Gardner says Luna Pier, which was long financed by a now-defunct power plant, relies heavily on tourism for revenue and would absolutely capitalize on the eclipse if not for the issue of egress. But the mayor of a city just six miles from the Ohio border has found himself directing people to Toledo instead.

“We’re going to get about 30 seconds of total eclipse and Toledo will get more like three minutes,” he says.

Gardner expects visitors will still come to Luna Pier and says the city is taking precautions to keep people safe — calling in reserve law enforcement, bringing in portable restrooms and encouraging property owners to rent out their parking spaces.

“So I’d like to tell people to come visit us when we’re open in the summer, and it’ll be beautiful when this bridge is done and we can welcome everybody,” Gardner says. “But it’s going to get very cozy here on the eclipse day … everyone’s going to need to be patient.”

The I-75 bridge in Luna Pier, Mich., a key route in and out of town, is closed for reconstruction. City officials are encouraging tourists not to come for the eclipse but bracing for traffic anyway. (Jim Gardner)An outdoorsy podiatrist is leading a backpacking tripJake Goldstein of Overland Park, Kan., will be taking the day off from his job as a podiatrist to co-lead a backpacking trip through the Ozark mountains in Arkansas.

The 59-year-old is a longtime outdoor enthusiast who teaches a backpacking course through his local Sierra Club chapter and leads regular outings throughout the year. But this eclipse trip is extra special, he says — and not just because of the rarity of the phenomenon.

The plan is to cover about six miles a day for three days, with time carved out on Monday to hike up to a fire tower and hang out there to view the eclipse. Goldstein says the group will be about 10 people, eight participants and two co-leaders. And, unlike many other such outings, it’s free of charge.

“So I feel like I’m doing a good thing and good service for the people that are interested in backpacking and seeing a unique celestial event,” he says.

Goldstein also took the morning off during the 2017 eclipse and drove an hour from his office hoping to catch a good glimpse. Unfortunately, it was cloudy — and then started to rain.

“I missed it, basically,” he says. “So I’m looking forward to this.”

A couple of amateur astronomers will hit the road for their anniversaryGenevieve and John Goss, pictured in Dripping Springs, Texas, for the October 2023 annular eclipse. (Genevieve Goss)Genevieve Goss and her husband John will celebrate their 35th anniversary on Monday in the Indiana city where they married, which just so happens to be in the path of totality.

The couple will travel in advance from their home in Virginia to Bloomington, where Goss’ brother lives since hotels are “impossible to find.”

On the day of, they plan to make the more than 70-mile drive out to Vincennes, traffic permitting, ideally to the hilltop church where they married on April 8, 1989.

“The center line passes over where we were married,” says Goss, 70. “If we can get to that spot, that would be kind of momentous.”

Goss says the dual milestone is meaningful because astronomy is close to their hearts: She describes herself as an amateur astronomer and says her husband is a former president of the Astronomical League, an umbrella group of amateur astronomy societies.

The couple flew to Wyoming to see the 2017 eclipse. She says that Indiana may have more cloud cover, but tying the eclipse to their anniversary is well worth it.

“We thought about traveling other places, but no,” she says. “Why not there, since that’s where it all began.”

Genevieve and John Goss, pictured at their wedding in 1989, are planning to travel back to Vincennes, Indiana, for their 35th anniversary on Monday. (Genevieve Goss)A college student anticipates a day of prayer and communityAsiyah Herrera poses in the office of 826 Boston, a nonprofit writing organization where she works as a teaching artist.
(Mel Taing/Asiyah Herrera)Asiyah Herrera, 22, isn’t just excited for the eclipse because it’s a rarity — but also because it falls during Ramadan, which many Muslims worldwide observe as a month of fasting, reflection and community.

“The month of Ramadan is already so much about community and worship and togetherness, and so this is just another affirmation of that,” says Herrera.

She notes that the eclipse is also happening during the final 10 days of Ramadan (which ends on Tuesday), an especially holy time of the month.

Herrera, a junior at Simmons University in Boston, plans to take time off from classes to spend the day with her family and go to a local mosque for a special prayer that is only said during an eclipse. Its general message, she says, is about taking a pause to recognize “just how big and vast the universe is.”

While Massachusetts is not in the path of totality, the Boston area will see a partial eclipse for just over two hours in the afternoon.

Herrera later plans to break the fast with her family and return to the mosque for evening prayers, capping off what she sees as “really just an entire day dedicated to God, and to worship, community.”

“I really think that for many people, Muslim or not, that the eclipse is really like this big, amazing event that we’re all like stopping our day to look at the sky and just be like, ‘This is crazy, right?’ ” Herrera says. “For us it’s also just a remembrance that the universe is vast and we are small and there’s a lot of power, and that’s amazing.”

Those lucky enough to be in the eclipse’s path of totality are crossing their fingers for clear skies on Monday, hoping for the best chance to stand in complete darkness, oohing and ahhing as the moon passes between the sun and the Earth.

But those plans could be ruined by something as unpredictable and uncontrollable as the weather. Forecasts warn of possible storms over large swaths of the 115-mile-wide path from Texas to Maine, bringing with them thick heavy clouds that could obscure the rare celestial event.

Thunderstorms are expected in Texas, Arkansas, and parts of Missouri, Jen Carfagno, an American meteorologist with The Weather Channel, told NPR’s Here & Now.

But that’s not necessarily cause for despair.

“Often thunderstorms develop during the late afternoon, even early evening, so there’s a lot of hope that maybe clouds won’t form until after the eclipse happens,” Carfagno said.

Clouds can also vanish during an eclipse as temperatures cool because of the sun getting blocked. “Sometimes that prevents air from rising to create the clouds. So air rises because it’s warmer than other air around it. So if air is cooling it may not rise and it may at least prevent clouds from thickening or building,” Carfagno explained.

There are also lots of different types of clouds; thin or sporadic clouds can leave gaps over the sun, allowing for at least temporary peeks.

And there’s more good news for people in northern Maine where a nor’easter is slamming residents. Carfagno said that the storm should clear out by Monday, making it one of the best spots to look up at the sky — wearing special eclipse glasses, of course.

So, while nobody knows if there will be clouds above during the 4-minute window of the perfect corona around the sun, there are still several ways to enjoy the wonders of such a phenomenon in less than ideal conditions.

Here are a few ideas on how best to take in the experience.

Make a back up plan and be ready to moveThe first piece of advice from true umbraphiles — what eclipse chasers are called — is to be ready to move, move, move.

Dan McGlaun, an eclipse expert and founder of Eclipse 2024, has traversed the globe for the best views of the last 15 total solar eclipses.

To get out from under hazy weather or thick clouds, McGlaun suggests checking an eclipse tracker, like the one he has created on his website, then jumping in a car to the nearest unobstructed view of the sky.

That’s what he did to see the 2017 solar eclipse over Carbondale, Ill. “We got in our cars and we drove in the direction the cloud was moving. We got way out from underneath it and we saw the whole eclipse,” he recalled.

In these situations, planning is king, which means having a pre-planned route to the final destination in order to avoid traffic snarls, McGlaun suggested.

For those with the passion and the resources to take more extreme measures, the self-described chief eclipse officer said they “will have airplanes on standby so they can get out an hour early and go somewhere looking there or they can get above the clouds and see it from the air.”

Barring any kind of mobility, the best option is to live in the momentEven in the worst case, there are physical changes that people in the path will still experience. Temperatures will drop and it’ll get very dark very quickly. At the same time, animals will also come alive in a unique way, particularly nocturnal creatures. That’s because their behavior is regulated by light levels.

As David Baron, author of the 2017 book American Eclipse, told NPR, standing in that kind of darkness is a highly emotional, full-sensory experience.

“The air temperature drops because the sunlight suddenly turns off. And you’re immersed in the moon’s shadow. It doesn’t feel real,” Baron said, adding that “birds will be going crazy. Crickets may be chirping,”

And humans are not exempt: “If you’re around other people, they’re going to be screaming and crying [with all their emotions from seeing the eclipse].”

Making lemonade out of eclipse rainThis year, whether the weather cooperates or not, McGlaun plans on watching the eclipse from his front yard in Indiana.

“The prospect of seeing one from my house is so special that it overrides even the possibility of me missing it. I would still count it,” he said, giddy with excitement.

McGlaun suggests gathering neighbors and friends for a celebration of the celestial wonder, even in the absence of clear skies. Preferably one set up with a large outdoor screen to accommodate NASA’s live stream of the event. Having telescopes, solar filters, and interactive activities on hand might also help children get the most out of it.

The thing to remember is that every total solar eclipse is special. “We were still part of a wonderful cosmic alignment,” he said.

While he is optimistic that the expected storms across Indiana will dissipate prior to the eclipse, McGlaun said he’s ready for anything.

He recalled that in 2009, after racing to Shanghai, China, to witness the eclipse, he found himself clouded out with no options of getting to a better spot. In an effort to make lemonade out of lemons, he said, “I set out drinking glasses and I caught rain that fell during totality. And so I have these vials of eclipse rain.”

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

What you need to know* Here’s what you need to know about the total solar eclipse * Drexel researchers will send a balloon into the stratosphere to measure ozone * University of Delaware students will be part of a NASA experiment * Not in the path of totality? You can still watch Monday’s total solar eclipse online * Watching a solar eclipse without the right filters can cause eye damage. Here’s why * Simple tips to safely photograph the solar eclipse with your cellphone * Here’s what time the eclipse will be visible in your region * And if you’re looking to safely photograph the eclipse, here are some simple tips

People who chase total solar eclipses all around the world will tell you that seeing the moon blot out the sun, plunging the world into sudden darkness, can be a transformative, unforgettable experience.

That’s why fourth grade teacher and STEM coach Lisa Buckner at Linden Elementary School in Oak Ridge, Tennessee was surprised when she recently reached out to some former students who’d actually seen one. They’d attended a big event she organized to observe the total solar eclipse that swept across the United States in 2017.

“They’re like, ‘Yeah, I don’t really remember it,'” says Buckner, laughing. “I was like, ‘Really?'”

“I thought they would remember it for a lifetime,” she adds.

After all, eclipse experts like Ralph Chou stress how overwhelming a total eclipse can be.

“Particularly for young people, a solar eclipse can be a life-changing event, literally,” says Chou, a vision scientist with the University of Waterloo in Canada who saw his first total solar eclipse at age 12. If all goes as planned on April 8th, when another total solar eclipse will cut northeast across the country, he’ll get to see his 20th.

Rick Fienberg, who is the project manager for the American Astronomical Society’s eclipse task force, says that he and his colleagues have encountered plenty of people who were profoundly affected by seeing the 2017 eclipse.

“We’ve heard them tell us their stories over a cup of coffee,” says Fienberg. “And many of them have said, ‘Yeah, it changed my life. It has turned me into an eclipse chaser,’ or ‘It’s caused me to read endless astronomy books or to pay more attention to science news.'”

But that’s just anecdotal, he says. He’s not aware of any data showing whether or not an eclipse can, say, boost the number of young people going into science careers — much less any studies attempting to quantify the ineffable emotional impact of seeing the sun blacked out.

As for Buckner’s students, it was the little details that stuck out in their memories — like biting moon pies into the shape of partial eclipse phases, or getting to look through some big telescopes set up by an astronomy club.

“What I thought was so amazing,” says Buckner, “is not really what they talked about remembering.”

From light to darkOne of the students who attended Buckner’s eclipse-observing event is Kaylee Tress, who is now an 8th-grader at Robertsville Middle School in Oak Ridge.

“I remember mostly everybody went crazy when it got dark,” says Tress. “It was such a bizarre feeling.”

She doesn’t think it had any lasting effects on her life — at least not that she’s aware of now.

“But it was definitely a really cool experience,” she says. “It’s hard to explain with words.”

Some kids in Tennessee who were younger than she was in 2017 don’t have any clear memories.

“I think we went to the front yard to watch the sun,” says Lilly Coffman of Oak Ridge, who is now 9 years old, and saw the last eclipse at home with her grandmother. “I don’t remember.”

Evelyn Sherfy, who is also now 9 years old, had to check with her older sister. “Weren’t we, like, with the neighbors?” she asked, uncertain. Her sister confirmed that yes, they’d gone to a blueberry farm with some neighbors.

Kids who were a few years older at the time seem to remember more.

Kepler Colwell was five years old when he saw the 2017 eclipse outside his family’s home in Knoxville, Tennessee. He says it’s not a “super-clear memory, but a pretty decent, clear memory. I remember it pretty well.”

Specifically, he remembers looking at his family’s white car when the last bits of the sun got covered up by the moon.

“Like, the car was there — it just went from light to dark, instantly,” he says. “Everything was dark. It was really cool.”

Ella Hay, who was six years old when the eclipse happened, remembers being out in an open field with her best friend, teacher, and all of her classmates.

“I have a mental picture of what it was,” she says. “It slowly got dark and then, BAM.”

The sounds of insectsLandon Davis was five years old when the eclipse happened, and remembers being on the playground and using eclipse glasses before the big event. “I don’t really remember that much,” he says.

His brother Jayden, who is a few years older, also remembers wearing eclipse glasses. “But I also remember hearing crickets, like at its peak of darkness I heard crickets as well,” he says.

The nighttime insects starting to make noise during the day also made an impact on Odelia Kneiser, who was in the fifth grade in 2017.

“That’s definitely the most distinct memory I have from that day,” she says.

She has no memory of seeing the totally eclipsed sun as a black circle in the sky, but does remember wearing a welding helmet that her father had fitted out with the proper filters to safely view the partially eclipsed sun.

And while she enjoyed seeing the eclipse, “I think it’s not as significant as I’ve heard other people express it as.”

Jayden Davis also said it doesn’t rank all that high in terms of his most important memories. “Here and there, I think about it sometimes,” he says.

Chase Stanek, who is now a junior in high school in Wisconsin, says that even though the event was super-memorable and fun, “I wouldn’t say it changed my life path or any of that.”

A ‘wake-up call’Some of the young people who saw the eclipse say it had more of an impact.

“I don’t know about lasting effects — but it’s definitely right up there as a top memory because, you know, it’s not a common event,” says Alex Shulze, who was nine years old when he saw the eclipse. “It was something really un-normal. It was fun. It was very different. It’s not something that I’d ever, obviously, seen. So I was really happy to actually experience it and kind of see what happened.”

He’s become interested in meteorology — before the eclipse, he’d already been paying attention to the dynamic power of storms — and says it’s possible that the eclipse, with its effects on temperature and the environment, might have influenced that growing fascination.

George Breiwa is now a high school senior in Lodi, Wisconsin, and he remembers almost everything about his fifth grade trip to see the eclipse — which he described as “a wake up call.”

“It’s not something you see every day, obviously. So it just kind of brought the perspective of like there’s more out there than you see every day, every year, you know?” says Breiwa. “It just kind of broadened the horizons and perspectives on literally everything.”

The teacher who organized the eclipse field trip for Breiwa and his classmates, Alison Juntunen, says that maybe young people are more likely to be influenced by an eclipse than older people.

“They have more time maybe to dream and ponder and be changed,” she says. “I feel like that is a possibility.”

And any effects could be subtle. Laura Peticolas, for example, was nine years old when her family went to see a total solar eclipse in Oregon in 1979. She vividly remembers driving out in the family’s VW bus and camping, with her dad playing Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.

What she doesn’t remember is the sun becoming a black void in the sky.

“I don’t remember it being a spiritual moment,” she says. “In fact, I don’t remember that moment at all.”

She thinks it was so freaky that her brain blotted it out. Subconsciously, though, she thinks she registered the eclipse experience as “super cool and strange. And I do know that after that, I really was starting to think about what exists in the universe that we can’t see.”

Eventually, she decided to become a physicist. So even though her childhood self wouldn’t have described seeing the eclipse as a transformative event, she suspects it had some kind of impact on the course of her life.

More resources to enjoy the eclipse Sharing the eclipse with tiny humans? Check out these kid-friendly total solar eclipse learning guides from Vermont Public’s But Why, and this great explainer from KERA Kids on the difference between a solar and a lunar eclipse. * Plan to wander into the wild for the best view? Here are some tips from outdoor experts. * Tips from Bill Nye* on the best ways to enjoy the eclipse.

NPR will be sharing highlights here from across the NPR Network throughout the day Monday if you’re unable to get out and see it in real time.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!

Scientists have documented changes in animal behaviors during the darkness of a total solar eclipse — bats pour out of their caves in the middle of the day, and birds get ready to sleep.

But there’s been less research on whether animals react to a partial solar eclipse, when only a part of the sun appears to be covered by the moon.

On Monday, people in the Philadelphia region can experience a near 90% coverage of the eclipse. Visitors to the Philadelphia Zoo will have a chance to help scientists determine whether animals can sense the light changes of a partial eclipse.

Elbroch and Olympia are puma cubs who were rescued In Kalama, Washington and now live at the Philadelphia Zoo. (Kimberly Paynter/WHYY)“One of the amazing things about having a zoo is that it’s a living collection of animals. It is constantly growing, evolving, changing,” said primate and mammal curator Michael Stern. “And this is just a question that a lot of people started asking us as the eclipse was getting closer and closer, and we realized we really don’t know the answer to it.”

Monday April 8, a solar eclipse will cross from Texas to Maine, putting over 30 million people in the path of totality, with a partial eclipse visible briefly for millions more.

What is totality and why does it matter?

Totality in the U.S. starts around 1:30 pm CT/2:30 ET and continues til 2:30 pm CT/3:30 pm ET lasting for a few minutes in each location.

The folks at NASA have a detailed breakdown for anyone in the U.S. just pop in your ZIP code.

If you’re lucky enough to find yourself in the path of totality, you can also find a minute by minute breakdown of when totality begins in your area, here.

Solar eclipse 2024: Follow the path of totality

Here’s what you need to know about the total solar eclipse
Drexel researchers will send a balloon into the stratosphere to measure ozone
University of Delaware students will be part of a NASA experiment
Simple tips to safely photograph the solar eclipse with your cellphone
Not in the path of totality? You can still watch Monday’s total solar eclipse online
Watching a solar eclipse without the right filters can cause eye damage. Here’s why

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

If you plan to check out Monday’s total solar eclipse and the only camera you own is one that doubles as a phone, with a little preparation (and precaution) you might still be able to get some relatively good shots.

“It all depends on how much effort one wants to put into it,” says Sean Walker, an associate editor with Sky & Telescope magazine. For starters, you’ll need to wear eclipse glasses or similar protective eye gear while aiming your camera or even just observing the eclipse.

In the U.S., the path of totality for the best views stretches from southern Texas, crossing through the South and Midwest and into the Northeast before hitting Maine. But anyone in the continental U.S. can catch at least a partial eclipse, weather permitting.

Don’t look up — look down!It will be possible to capture interesting images even if you don’t live in, or travel to, that swath where the moon will appear to nearly perfectly cover the sun. “If you’re within several hundred miles of the path of totality at maximum eclipse time,” Walker says, “the spaces between leaves on trees and basically anything that makes a pinhole will project an image of the crescent sun on the ground or on a wall … depending on how high the sun is at the time.”

A photo shows the eclipse projected through the spaces between leaves taken on Aug. 21, 2017, in Glendo, Wyo. (John T. Meader)That’s a photo that’s “all easy peasy with a cellphone,” says John Meader, director of Northern Stars Planetarium and Educational Services in Fairfield, Maine. Another option is to shoot the environment around you as it is darkened as the eclipse reaches totality. “Maybe a before and during shot of the same scene to capture the changing light levels,” he suggests.

Feeling more ambitious? A tripod is a mustIf you’re determined to take a direct photo of the eclipse, you will need a bit more preparation.

The key to getting a good photo is “a simple tripod that will hold your cellphone stable so you can take pictures and not wiggle around during the totality,” Walker says.

Even so, hitting the shutter button by hand could cause unwanted jiggle. To avoid that, consider a Bluetooth trigger. Or set the camera to “timer mode,” giving it a few seconds to settle before it snaps the picture.

Randall Benton, a freelance photographer with a passion for solar eclipses, says the other option is to shoot video “just as the sun is going dark.” Although the quality of phone video isn’t quite as good as a still image, you can always extract a still from the video later, he says.

For best results, use your phone’s manual settingsIf you’ve never fiddled with your camera’s settings, now’s a good time. You’ll want to reduce the exposure, at least during the partial eclipse phase, and also to set focus to “infinity.” (Here’s how to access manual controls for an iPhone or Android.) If you have a second pair of solar eclipse glasses, you can use them as a filter to cover the camera lens on your phone, Benton says. It will protect your phone’s camera from possible damage from long exposure to direct sunlight and give you a more dramatic shot.

“You want to keep those solar glasses as close against the lens as possible, because most of [them] have a mirror surface on both sides,” he explains. If any light leaks in from the sides, “it can reflect off of the back side of the filter and create glare or funny reflections that can spoil the image.”

If you’re in the path of totality, don’t forget to remove the filter when the magic moment arrives. “Try to zoom in, because you’re not going to hurt your eyes looking at totality. It’s only when the disk of the sun is visible that you really shouldn’t be looking at it directly without filtration,” Meader says.

Of course, you could always leave the photography to the pros, live in the moment and take in the celestial show.

“While it’s great to take your own photos, if this is your first eclipse, really enjoy the experience,” Walker says. “When [you] actually experience totality, your mind has a hard time wrapping around that. … It’s just an amazing experience.”

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

If you’re nowhere near the path of totality or if clouds spoil your view, you can still catch the total solar eclipse online.

Weather permitting, tens of millions who live along a narrow stretch from Mexico’s Pacific coast to eastern Canada can just look skyward Monday to glimpse day turn to twilight when the moon blots out the sun.

Eclipse glasses are a must to prevent eye damage. The only time it’s safe to ditch protective glasses is during totality, or the few minutes of complete darkness.

NASA goes live from different eclipse citiesNASA is offering several hours of streaming online and on NASA TV starting at 1 p.m. EDT from several cities along the totality path. The space agency will show telescope views of the sun and there will be appearances by scientists and space station astronauts. During the eclipse, small rockets will blast off from Wallops Island, Virginia, with science instruments into the electrically charged portion of the atmosphere near the edge of space known as the ionosphere.

When the moon passes between Earth and the sun on April 8, Chester County officials want Hibernia County Park in Coatesville to be the destination for people to watch the total — well, near total — solar eclipse.

The Chester County Library System and the county’s Department of Parks and Preservation are teaming up with the Chester County Astronomical Society and Timmy Telescope Solar Astronomy Education for the eclipse viewing event.

“We’re running our program from the time that eclipse starts until the time it is over,” said Pam Marquette, program coordinator for the Chester County Library System.

A total solar eclipse is when the moon completely covers the sun. When this happens, the sky dims as if it’s dusk or early morning and a faint halo of sunlight appears behind the moon’s shadow.

“People’s lights will come on — photosensors, animals will act like it’s twilight and the temperature will drop because the sun will be blocked out,” said Roger Kennedy, a member of the Chester County Astronomical Society.

It can only be seen from a specific path of locations. During the April 8 eclipse, parts of the United States will fall within the path of totality. However, Chester County, like much of Pennsylvania, will experience 90% totality.

In 2017, Edmund Nowak, a physics professor at the University of Delaware, drove to South Carolina to see the total solar eclipse. He had a great experience with thousands of other people all camped out for the minutes when the moon completely covered the sun.

“The whole crowd is going ‘ooh’ … and then suddenly it becomes really quiet as everybody just lets that eclipse moment, that totality moment … soak in.”

Aside from the spectacle of the eclipse itself, he was also struck by a team of students working frantically to inflate and launch weather balloons with scientific instruments.

“It’s like the Super Bowl, right? There’s lots of preparation and then the day of the event is there and you got to have that team in place and everybody working together. So I thought, ‘Wow, this would be great to bring back to to our campus.'”

And that’s what he did — he formed a team at the University of Delaware ahead of this year’s total solar eclipse. They got a grant to join a nationwide eclipse ballooning project supported by NASA. On the day of the eclipse on April 8, the team will be in Junction, Texas, which is along the path of totality.

It was not hard to find interested students to join the expedition, like Jarrod Bieber, a sophomore studying physics and astrophysics.

“I would have probably joined any project that gave me the opportunity to actually travel to the line of totality … for this April eclipse,” Bieber said.

The research team will launch balloons with instruments to study gravity waves in the atmosphere, which affect the weather but have been difficult for weather forecasters to pin down. They will also measure the levels of muons, tiny particles that come from cosmic rays and are part of the building blocks of the universe.

A chilly, midday darkness fell across North America on Monday as a total solar eclipse raced across the continent, thrilling those lucky enough to behold the spectacle through clear skies.

Eclipse mania gripped all of Mexico, the U.S. and Canada, as the moon swept in front of the sun, blotting out daylight. Almost everyone in North America was guaranteed at least a partial eclipse, weather permitting.

It was the continent’s biggest eclipse audience ever, with a couple hundred million people living in or near the shadow’s path, plus scores of out-of-towners flocking in.

Clouds blanketed most of Texas as the total solar eclipse began its diagonal dash across land, starting along Mexico’s mostly clear Pacific coast and aiming for Texas and 14 other U.S. States, before exiting into the North Atlantic near Newfoundland.

Just east of Dallas, the hundreds gathered at Mesquite’s downtown area cheered and whistled as the clouds parted in the final minutes before totality. As the sun finally became cloaked, the crowd grew louder, whipping off their eclipse glasses to soak in the unforgettable view of the sun’s corona, or spiky outer atmosphere, and Venus shining brilliantly off to the right.

City officials reminded everyone that the last total solar eclipse in these parts was the 1870s, making this one all the more special. Eclipse-themed music was turned off as the big moment approached.

“Oh God, it’s so dark,” marveled Aiyana Brown, 14, who watched alongside her grandfather, Mesquite Mayor Daniel Aleman Jr. “I’m a huge science nerd, and this is amazing.”

The weather also cooperated at the last minute near Austin. “I will never unsee this,” said Ahmed Husseim of Austin, who had the eclipse on his calendar for a year. Husseim and his family were among hundreds who gathered on the lawn of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, with blankets, lawn chairs and country music.

Where will you be watching the April 8 total solar eclipse? There are just a few weeks left to pick your spot to see the skies darken along a strip of North America, whether by land, sea or air.

For those who live inside the 115-mile-wide (185-kilometer-wide) path of total darkness, it may be a matter of just stepping outside and donning special eclipse glasses to watch the spectacle unfold. For the millions outside the path, or those who just want to improve their chances of clear skies, it could mean hitting the road with a game plan.

The eclipse reaches Mexico’s Pacific coast in the morning, cuts diagonally across the U.S. from Texas to Maine and exits in eastern Canada by late afternoon. Most of the rest of the continent will see a partial eclipse.

Which states will get a full eclipse?The path of total darkness — the path of totality — crosses 15 states. The key ones are:

Texas
Oklahoma
Arkansas
Missouri
Illinois
Kentucky
Indiana
Ohio
Pennsylvania
New York
Vermont
New Hampshire
Maine

Tennessee and Michigan just get a small slice. The rest of the lower 48 states will see a partial eclipse. The farther from the path of totality, the smaller the moon’s bite will be out of the sun.

On April 8, as millions of people try to watch a solar eclipse sweep over North America, eye doctors across the United States will be on high alert.

That’s because, while a solar eclipse is a stunning celestial event, it can also be dangerous. Looking at any part of the exposed sun without the right kind of protection can permanently injure the eye’s light-sensitive retina.

And if past eclipses are prologue, it’s likely that some eclipse-gazers will show up at doctors’ offices with significant eye damage.

In 2017, during the solar eclipse seen across the United States, that happened to multiple people despite abundant media coverage about the danger of looking at the sun when it is anything less than fully and completely covered by the moon.

In New York City, for example, one young woman came to the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai, complaining of blurred and distorted vision.

She had peeked up at the crescent sun without eyewear at first, then looked at it longer while wearing what she thought were appropriate eclipse glasses.

“But the problem was she was handed glasses from someone else,” says ophthalmologist Avnish Deobhakta, so she didn’t know if the eyewear really met safety standards.

Doctors found a permanent, crescent-shaped wound on her retina; there’s no treatment for that kind of injury, which is similar to the kind of light-induced damage caused by pointing a laser into the eye.

Other eclipse-related eye injuries were reported in California and Utah.

Given that more than 150 million people directly viewed either a partial eclipse or a total solar eclipse, however, the number who suffered eye problems may seem relatively small.

“We’ve got less than 100 cases across Canada and the U.S.,” says Ralph Chou, an eclipse eye safety expert with the University of Waterloo in Canada.

But no one knows for sure how many people damaged their eyes in 2017, he says, because not every case gets written up for a medical journal, and people may not seek help for less severe vision troubles.

“A lot of them, if they actually happened, were probably relatively minor and, you know, they resolved on their own within weeks or months,” says Chou, who says that about half of those who experience significant blurring on the day after an eclipse will recover almost completely.

Some of that recovery may just be the brain learning to compensate and “fill in” the blanks, says Deobhakta, who notes that “there’s two eyes, and often there’s asymmetric injury. Your brain kind of gets used to it.”

He notes that there are ways to enjoy the eclipse without looking up at all; everyday household objects like colanders allow you to create pinhole projectors that let you watch an image of the sun becoming more and more crescent-shaped.

“My advice is to not look at the sun, because you may not realize that it is affecting your retina. It does not hurt. It doesn’t burn at the time. It’s not as if you feel it,” says Deobhakta.

If you do choose to look up at the sun when it is partially eclipsed, says Deobhakta, “make sure you really are sure that you have the standard glasses that have the right filters.”

The American Astronomical Society has a list of vetted suppliers.

If you still have reliable eclipse viewers from 2017 that are in good condition, those should still work fine, says Chou.

He notes that eclipse viewers usually have a “best by” date on them, but that is to satisfy European regulations related to personal protective equipment.

“It’s essentially meaningless because the filters do not age,” says Chou. “If you’ve taken good care of the viewers from 2017, they haven’t been crushed or folded or whatever to damage the mountings, then they’re perfectly safe to use for this eclipse.”

Despite the warnings, some people try to glimpse the partially-eclipsed sun without eye protection, thinking that a quick look won’t cause any harm. While an initial glance at the sun may not cause lasting damage, says Chou, repeated peeks do add up.

“At some point, you may tip yourself over the critical threshold,” says Chou. “Unfortunately, you don’t realize that until far too late.”

The eye damage only becomes apparent hours after it occurs. Typically, people wake up the morning after observing an eclipse and see a spot of extreme fuzziness in the center of their field of vision.

There is one time when it’s safe to look up at the sun with the naked eye, experts say, and that’s when the sun is totally covered by the moon.

This eclipse phase is only visible from the so-called “path of totality,” a stretch of land from Texas to Maine. And the experience of totality doesn’t last long — up to four and a half minutes or so, depending on your location.

When the sun is 100% obscured, the sky abruptly darkens and the once-bright sun becomes a dark circle surrounded by a ghostly white ring called the corona.

If people wear super-dark eclipse eyewear during these dramatic moments, they’ll miss the whole show.

“People get so concerned to not hurt their eyes, which of course is super important, that they don’t take their glasses off when the moon completely covers the sun,” says Laura Peticolas, a space physicist at Sonoma State University. “And then they’re like, ‘I never saw the corona.'”

So knowing when to take the glasses off, and when to put them on, is key.

Chou says that in the last moments before the sun gets totally covered, the thin crescent of the bright sun breaks into discrete points of bright light. These are called “Baily’s beads,” and they are the last bits of light from the disk of the sun shining through the valleys on the edge of the moon.

“And as they go out, their disappearance is a signal that it is now safe to remove the filters and look at the sun without a protective filter,” he explains.

As soon as the sun starts to re-emerge, the glasses need to immediately go back on.

“It is possible to observe the eclipse in perfect safety,” says Chou, who has seen 19 total solar eclipses.

He encourages people to go out and enjoy an event that won’t happen again in the United States until 2044, even as he realizes that some people will be too fearful of eye damage.

“I recognize that there are going to be people who just don’t trust the science and just don’t trust the public service announcements and are just going to ignore the eclipse as much as they can,” says Chou. “It’s an unfortunate thing.”

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Spring is here — officially, at least.

The vernal equinox arrives on Tuesday, marking the start of the spring season for the Northern Hemisphere.

But what does that actually mean? Here’s what to know about how we split up the year using the Earth’s orbit.

What is the equinox?

As the Earth travels around the sun, it does so at an angle.

Tom Stafford, one of NASA’s early astronauts, who flew in space four times including a trip to orbit the moon and then a historic rendezvous with Soviet cosmonauts, has died. He was 93 and passed away on Monday after battling a long illness.

Retired space pioneers Tom Stafford of the U.S. (left) and Alexey Leonov of Russia meet in Moscow in 2011 for the 50th anniversary of the first man in space, Russian Yuri Gagarin. (Alexander Zemlianichenko/AP)NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, “Today General Tom Stafford went to the eternal heavens which he so courageously explored as a Gemini and Apollo astronaut as well as a peacemaker in Apollo Soyuz. Those of us privileged to know him are very sad but grateful we knew a giant.”

Stafford was born in Weatherford, Okla., in 1930 and later recalled, “As a little boy I wanted to fly airplanes and then later, be a fighter pilot. I wanted to go higher and faster. And [space] was just the next logical step.”

Stafford graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and then was a test pilot in the Air Force. NASA selected him in 1962 as part of the second group of the space agency’s astronauts.

He flew in space aboard Gemini 6 and then on Gemini 9. He commanded Apollo 10 in 1969, the second time NASA orbited the moon. That was the dress rehearsal before NASA’s first landing on the moon two months later. Stafford, along with Gene Cernan, flew the lunar module to within nine miles of the surface before eventually returning to Earth.

In Stafford’s final trip to space in 1975, he and two crewmates flew an Apollo spacecraft and rendezvoused with a Soviet Soyuz capsule. The event was marked with photos of Stafford and cosmonaut Alexey Leonov shaking hands where the two craft were joined.

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project flight was the first joint mission and was followed by others aboard the Mir and International Space Stations.

Before this mission, Stafford spent two years learning Russian and traveling to Moscow. He told NPR in 2016, the mission was important because it ended the space race. “We proved that two countries with different languages, differing units of measurement, certainly vastly different political systems could work together to achieve a common goal,” he said.

Stafford left NASA after that flight and eventually retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant general. Later, he complained that after Apollo NASA needed a clear mandate for its explorations. “Have a consistent strategy and goal and stay with it and don’t change with administrations,” he said. “Like you don’t start building an aircraft carrier and stop when the [new] administration comes.”

Throughout his life, Stafford said he was driven by the principles “study hard and work hard. … Remember it’s your attitude not your aptitude that will take you to the highest altitude in your life.”

Stafford is the third Apollo-era astronaut to die in the past four months (Frank Borman and Ken Mattingly). There are just eight remaining astronauts still alive from the lunar program.

Brendan Byrne of member station WMFE contributed this report.

Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

A newly-discovered green comet is zipping by Earth and is now visible for the first time since before Galileo invented his telescope.

In the deepest parts of the ocean, strange creatures lurk and industrial fishing and deep sea mining pose a threat. Plus, mercury is in retrograde right now. So, what?

The four members of the Crew-7 mission are set to dock to the International Space Station on Sunday.

Lawmakers heard first-hand accounts of craft that are "beyond our current understanding of our technology," and allegations that the U.S. recovered non-human "bio remains."

Monday's moon is a so-called supermoon because it will be both full and located close to Earth on its elliptical orbit around our planet.

Druids, pagans, hippies, local residents and tourists celebrated for the night and greeted sunrise on Wednesday, which is the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere.

NASA held its first public meeting on UFOs Wednesday a year after launching a study into unexplained sightings.

The space agency televised the hourslong hearing featuring an independent panel of experts. The team includes 16 scientists and other experts selected by NASA including retired astronaut Scott Kelly, the first American to spend nearly a year in space.

Several committee members have been subjected to “online abuse” for serving on the team, which detracts from the scientific process, said NASA’s Dan Evans, adding that NASA security is dealing with it.

“It’s precisely this rigorous, evidence-based approach that allows one to separate the fact from fiction,” Evans said.

The study is a first step in trying to explain mysterious sightings in the sky that NASA calls UAPs, or unidentified aerial phenomena.

The group is looking at what unclassified information is available on the subject and how much more is needed to understand what’s going on in the sky, according to astrophysicist David Spergel, the committee’s chair who runs the Simons Foundation.

No secret military data are included, such as anything surrounding the suspected spy balloons from China spotted flying over the U.S. earlier this year.

The meeting was held at at NASA headquarters in Washington with the public taking part remotely.

A final report is expected by the end of July.

Carrie Fisher, best known as Princess Leia from the Star Wars series of movies, is being honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The recognition for the late actress comes on May 4, known as Star Wars Day for the date’s similarity to one of the series’ catch phrases, “may the Force be with you.”

“Carrie will join her Star Wars co-stars and fellow Walk of Famers Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford on this historic sidewalk,” said Ana Martinez, producer of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, in a statement.

Leia’s star won’t be far from her twin brother’s, the organization notes: The star for Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker, is just a few feet away. Fisher’s mother, Debbie Reynolds — a longtime actress best known for the musical Singin’ in the Rain — has a star just across the street.

Fisher and Reynolds died on consecutive days in 2016. Fisher’s daughter, Billie Lourd — a fellow Star Wars actress — will accept the honor on her behalf in a ceremony that will be streamed live at 11:30 a.m. PT.

Aside from Star Wars, Fisher also had memorable film roles in When Harry Met Sally and The Blues Brothers and was nominated for Emmys for a guest appearances on 30 Rock and Catastrophe and for her own one-woman show, Wishful Drinking. The latter was based on her book of the same name, one of several novels and memoirs she authored.

NPR critic Glen Weldon remembered her as “a creature of sardonic, clear-eyed, witheringly self-recriminatory good humor.”

“She wrote with a kind of blistering eloquence about her struggles with addiction and mental illness. She talked with rueful glee about wearing those silly hair-buns and that damned gold bikini and delivering that hammy space-opera dialogue.”

The Walk of Fame, which will have 2,754 stars as of today, was launched by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1960.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

A Japanese company lost contact with its spacecraft moments before touchdown on the moon Wednesday, saying the mission had apparently failed.

Communications ceased as the lander descended the final 33 feet (10 meters), traveling around 16 mph (25 kph). Flight controllers peered at their screens in Tokyo, expressionless, as the minutes went by with no word from the lander, which is presumed to have crashed.

“We have to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface,” said Takeshi Hakamada, founder and CEO of the company, ispace.

If it had landed, the company would have been the first private business to pull off a lunar landing.

Only three governments have successfully touched down on the moon: Russia, the United States and China. An Israeli nonprofit tried to land on the moon in 2019, but its spacecraft was destroyed on impact.

The 7-foot lander (2.3-meter) Japanese lander carried a mini lunar rover for the United Arab Emirates and a toylike robot from Japan designed to roll around in the moon dust. There were also items from private customers on board.

Named Hakuto, Japanese for white rabbit, the spacecraft had targeted Atlas crater in the northeastern section of the moon’s near side, more than 50 miles (87 kilometers) across and just over 1 mile (2 kilometers) deep.

Hakuto took a long, roundabout route to the moon following its December liftoff, beaming back photos of Earth along the way.

Amateur astronomers, get out your datebooks.

The next total solar eclipse visible from the U.S. will occur just shy of one year from now on April 8, 2024.

For just a few minutes, the moon will pass directly in front of the afternoon sun and cover it up, creating the unusual celestial phenomenon of the total solar eclipse.

It will be the last time a total solar eclipse will cross the U.S. for more than 20 years, NASA said.

Viewers located in a strip of the mainland U.S. stretching from Texas to Maine — as well as parts of Mexico and Canada — will be able to see what’s known as the path of totality. That’s when the moon completely obscures the sun.

Others watching from nearby should be able to see a partial solar eclipse, when the sun will look like it’s had a bite taken out of it.

For those stargazing from the U.S., the event will occur somewhere between 12:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., depending on your location and time zone.

Safety is paramount for those preparing to watch the celestial show. Experts say that, aside from the brief time the moon completely covers up the sun during a total solar eclipse, it’s not safe to look directly at a total or partial eclipse with the naked eye. NASA says using specialized eye protection or alternate methods, such as a pinhole projector or your phone, is a must.

Though other eclipses occur more regularly, the last time a total solar eclipse crossed North America was on August 21, 2017.

In the U.S., the eclipse captured the attention of the nation, with droves of sky-watchers gathering in public spaces and taking road trips for a better view of the spectacle.

But you don’t need to wait until next year to see an eclipse.

According to NASA, another solar eclipse will be visible from the U.S. on Oct. 14, 2023. It will be what’s called an annular solar eclipse, when the moon is deep in its orbit and appears (from the perspective of those of us on Earth) too small to fully cover up the sun, instead creating a “ring of fire” effect.

The annular eclipse will be visible in parts of the U.S., Mexico and other countries in Central and South America. Viewers in parts of all 50 U.S. states will be able to catch a partial solar eclipse.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Dust off your eclipse glasses: It’s only a year until a total solar eclipse sweeps across North America.

On April 8, 2024, the moon will cast its shadow across a stretch of the U.S., Mexico and Canada, plunging millions of people into midday darkness.

It’s been less than six years since a total solar eclipse cut across the U.S., from coast to coast. That was on Aug. 21, 2017.

If you miss next year’s spectacle, you’ll have to wait 20 years until the next one hits the U.S. But that total eclipse will only be visible in Montana and the Dakotas.

Here’s what to know to get ready for the 2024 show:

WHERE CAN I SEE IT?

Next year’s eclipse will slice a diagonal line across North America on April 8, which falls on a Monday.

It will start in the Pacific and first reach land over Mexico around 11:07 a.m. local time, NASA predicts. Then, it’ll cross over into Texas and move across parts of the Midwest and Northeast in the afternoon.

All in all, it will hit parts of 13 U.S. states: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Cities in its path include Dallas; Little Rock, Arkansas; Indianapolis; Cleveland and Buffalo, New York.

Parts of Canada — including Quebec and Newfoundland — will also get a glimpse before the eclipse heads out to sea in the early evening.

A total eclipse will be visible within a 115-mile wide swath — the path of totality. Outside that path, you can still see a partial solar eclipse, where the moon takes a bite out of the sun and turns it into a crescent shape.

Total eclipses happen about every 18 months, but a lot of times they cross over remote areas where few people see them.

Updated April 3, 2023 at 2:14 PM ETNASA and the Canadian Space Agency have announced the names of the four astronauts who will travel on a spaceflight around the Moon next year.

The group will fly aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft as part of the Artemis program, which aims to return astronauts to the surface of the Moon for the first time in more than 50 years, establish a long-term presence on the lunar surface and eventually put humans on Mars.

The four-person crew will include NASA astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Victor Glover and Reid Wiseman as well as Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen.

“We have a lot to celebrate, and it’s so much more than the four names that have been announced. We need to celebrate this moment in human history,” said Glover, Artemis II’s pilot, during a Monday morning event to announce the crew. “Artemis II is more than a mission to the Moon and back. It’s more than a mission that has to happen before we send people to the surface of the Moon. It is the next step on the journey that gets humanity to Mars.”

Wiseman and Glover both have taken flights to the International Space Station, and were both captains in the U.S. Navy. Koch was an engineer and a scientific field worker before becoming an astronaut, and her 328-day stint in space set a record for the longest single spaceflight by a woman. Hansen, an astronaut with the Canadian Space Agency, served as a fighter pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force.

The mission will be the second phase of NASA’s Artemis program. Artemis I occurred last year, when NASA launched the uncrewed Orion on a test mission to space in November, sending the ship around the Moon and back on a 1.4-million-mile journey that lasted 25 and a half days. The goal of that mission was to test the new Artemis rocket and spacecraft ahead of a crewed flight.

NASA associate administrator Robert D. Cabana said after the Orion splashed down safely in December that the spacecraft performed “flawlessly” despite a few minor glitches. Officials had scuttled the scheduled launch of Artemis I several times over technical problems, including a hydrogen leak, as well as severe weather.

With the test flight finally under Orion’s belt and its first crew named, space program officials are preparing for the second phase of Artemis, which is scheduled to take place in 2024. The four astronauts will embark on a roughly 10-day mission around the Moon and back without landing on the lunar surface.

President Biden called the crew members to offer his thanks and tell them he was proud of the mission they were set to embark on.

“The world just is, just holds their breath when things like this happen,” Biden said. “And I know you know it, but the work you’re doing is going to inspire countless people around our country and the world.”

The final phase of the Artemis project, Artemis III, will put astronauts on the Moon once again — but no sooner than 2025. The last time NASA astronauts walked on the Moon was during the Apollo 17 mission in 1972.

Officials say Artemis III also will land the first woman and the first person of color on the lunar surface.

As part of the program, NASA hopes to build a base camp on the Moon that would include a lunar cabin, a rover and a mobile home and allow astronauts to stay there for up to two months at a time to conduct future research.

According to NASA’s Office of Inspector General, each Orion spaceflight will cost more than $4 billion, and the overall cost of the Artemis program through the 2025 fiscal year will reach $93 billion.

A series of other countries have signed onto an agreement known as the Artemis Accords with NASA that lays out shared principles underpinning future space exploration, including Australia, Japan, the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

This week, you have an opportunity to acquaint yourself with some of our solar system neighbors and reduce some of your screen time.

Who are they? That all depends on the weather. But Jupiter, Mercury, Venus, Uranus, and Mars will dazzle us earthlings this week.

What’s the big deal? Over the next couple of nights, the planets are expected to align.

It’s an opportunity to take a glimpse at a “planetary parade,” according to Rick Fienberg, senior contributing editor of Sky & Telescope magazine. And he says you won’t need a telescope — although some binoculars, an unobstructed view of the horizon, and clear skies will certainly help.
It’s neat, though not particularly unusual, says Jackie Faherty, astrophysicist at the American Museum of Natural History.
“I want people to want to go outside and look up. I want people to be excited about looking up at the stars and planets. Right now what’s happening is something that you might not realize does happen quite a bit, which is the planets are up a lot. This is not a particularly rare event, but it is an event that you should celebrate and you should want to go outside and look at.”
What you see will largely depend on where you are, according to reporting by NPR’s Joe Hernandez. Those in the northern hemisphere might have a better shot at catching these celestial vibes.
Venus will be the brightest, so it might be easier to spot. The reddish Mars will shine brightly near the moon, while nearby Uranus may appear faint and only be visible through binoculars.

Want more science journalism? Listen to the Consider This episode on the most successful global public health plan you’ve probably never heard of.

What are people saying?

Fienberg’s tips on catching a glimpse:

Wait until the sun has set and then go out and look low in that bright part of the sky where the sun has just set with binoculars, and you should see brighter Jupiter next to fainter Mercury.

Faherty on a recent increased public interest in all types of astronomical happenings:

The nighttime sky is the original Netflix. It’s the original entertainment, and people lost that, because they’re disconnected from looking up, and they’re very connected to looking down at their phone or their tablet or their computer or whatever. Because things [can be] bright in the sky, when you accidentally look up, they will look striking to you.

Fienberg on the waves of interest in astronomy:

Most people don’t pay attention to the night sky the way astronomy enthusiasts do, so they may not realize that some of the bright dots up there are even planets. So when the planets are all visible at the same time at a particular time of the year, it becomes a news story and people suddenly pay attention to the planets.

So, what now?

Gear up for April, where the Lyrid meteor shower is expected to take place from the middle of the month.
Look up more! You might spot a planet, or just a glance at a beautiful, expansive, inky night sky.

Learn more:

If ChatGPT designed a rocket — would it get to space?
A 3D-printed rocket launched successfully but failed to reach orbit
Scientists think they know why interstellar object ‘Oumuamua moved so strangely

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

A comet known as C/2022 E3, marked by its bright green nucleus and long faint ion tail, will be on display in the Earth sky later this month — possibly for the first time ever or at least for thousands of years.

“If C/2022 E3 has ever passed through the solar system before, it would have last been seen in the sky more than 10,000 years ago,” says Jon Giorgini, a senior analyst at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

Comets are essentially clumps of frozen gases, rock and dust. But when they approach the sun and heat up, they become powerful cosmic objects, spewing gases and dust in a way that forms their iconic shape: a glowing core and flame-like tail that can stretch on for millions of miles.

Astronomers first spotted the brightening outburst back in March 2022 at the Zwicky Transient Facility on Palomar Mountain in California. At the time, the comet was inside the orbit of Jupiter.

According to NASA, the newly discovered comet is expected to reach its closest proximity to the sun on Jan. 12. Then, about three weeks later, beginning Feb. 1, the comet is slated to draw nearest to Earth — 26.4 million miles away to be exact.

The brightness of comets tends to be unpredictable, but this one’s current behavior is promising, according to a recent explainer from Preston Dyches from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Its glow may be visible to the naked eye, though only in dark night skies. Observers with binoculars or telescopes have a greater chance of witnessing the rare speck of light.

Spectators in the Northern Hemisphere can begin to spot the comet’s faint glow in the morning sky this month, as it journeys toward the northwest, according to Dyches. The comet will likely be visible to those in the Southern Hemisphere starting early February.

After its brief appearance in the Earth skies, it’s unclear where it may go.

Because scientists have only recently begun to track the comet’s path, there is still a lot to understand about C/2022 E3, says Giorgini.

It’s possible it may gain enough energy to fling out of our solar system, or it might remain bound to its elliptical orbit for another trip around the sun.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

One of the early Apollo astronauts has died. Walt Cunningham died Tuesday after complications from a fall. He was 90.

Walt Cunningham flew in space just one time. His flight in 1968 was an important — and often forgotten one — for the lunar program.

Cunningham was the lunar module pilot of the first manned Apollo mission that went to space. Apollo 7‘s 11-day trip around the Earth was a key stepping stone to NASA’s march to the moon.

“The real accomplishment, of course, was the first manned landing on the moon,” Cunningham told NPR in 2016. “But that was the fifth of what I’ve always described as five giant steps. The first one was the Apollo 7 mission, of course. Complete test of the Apollo spacecraft.”

The launch came after a difficult time for NASA. Just 21 months before, a fire on the launchpad killed three astronauts during a test of Apollo 1. In the interim, NASA changed many procedures and the command module underwent a series of safety improvements.

Cunningham said in 2016 that if Apollo 7 had not gone well, the U.S. wouldn’t have landed on the moon before the end of the 1960s. “Historically, what the public doesn’t realize,” he said, “It is still the longest, most ambitious, most successful first test flight of any new flying machine ever.”

Astronauts Walt Cunningham (left) of Apollo 7, and Jim Lovell of Apollo 8 and Apollo 13, participate in an event in Washington marking the 40th anniversary anniversary of the first moon landing. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images)“There were so many things that had to be tested,” he recalled. During the flight, the crew test-fired the engine that would place Apollo into and out of lunar orbit, simulated docking maneuvers and did the first-ever live television broadcast from an American spacecraft.

“It was hard to imagine that we could get through all those things [in an 11-day mission] without something going wrong and saying, ‘hey you need to gotta come home,” Cunningham said.

The mission was deemed a success but it was the last time these astronauts would fly in space. There was tension between Apollo 7’s commander, Wally Schirra, and mission control. As the flight dragged on, Schirra caught a cold and so did astronaut Donn Eisele and the crew’s squabbles worsened with ground controllers. Despite that, Cunningham said, “As I look back on it, it was a job, a challenge, and a task that in the end was very well done.”

Cunningham left NASA in 1971 after serving as a manager for Skylab, the U.S. space station. He retired from the Marine Corps Reserve as a colonel and attended Harvard Business School, dabbling in venture capital. He also hosted a radio talk show.

Cunningham was a physicist and later became known for his skeptical views of climate change, disagreeing with overwhelming scientific belief that humans are to blame for increasing global temperatures. He wrote, “There is a war going on between those who believe that human activities are responsible for global warming and those who don’t.”

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

A total lunar eclipse happens when the moon falls completely in the Earth's shadow.

NASA smashed a spacecraft into an asteroid in an attempt to throw it off course. The mission succeeded beyond expectations, officials said.

"Narco," a dance hit by Australian musician Timmy Trumpet and the Dutch DJ duo Blasterjaxx, is the walk-on music for star relief pitcher Edwin Diaz.

In images streamed as the impact neared, the egg-shaped asteroid, called Dimorphos, grew in size from a blip on screen to have its full rocky surface come quickly into focus.

Neil deGrasse Tyson writes, "Objective truths of science are not founded in belief systems. They are not established by the authority of leaders or the power of persuasion."

On the anniversary of President Kennedy's speech on the race to the moon, we look at dramatic advances in U.S. space science, from commercial flights to the Webb telescope.

NASA has called off its second launch attempt for its new moon rocket because of yet another fuel leak.

A new book is written from the witty, sharp, sometimes self-indulgent perspective of our Milky Way galaxy, detailing what it's like to look down on tiny planet Earth.

NASA's Apollo missions already sent astronauts to the moon from 1969 to 1972. But scientists say there's still lots of good science to do there.

Humans have long asked the question, “Are we alone?” These SETI scientists are on a quest to find out

Bill Ochs, the project manager for the James Webb telescope, shares the trials and tribulations of the launch and what it's like having the images out in the world.

The Webb Telescope is allowing us to look back further into our past than ever before and revealing distant galaxies. exoplanets, cosmic cliffs, dying stars and much more.

Thanks to the telescope's deep and sharp infrared images, Earthlings are getting a more detailed look at distant galaxies than was ever possible.

NASA's $10 billion new telescope showed the world something remarkable today: an image of some of the first galaxies to form in the universe.

Boeing Aerospace has donated $3 million to the Franklin Institute’s $8 million update of its space exhibition, planned for 2023.

Astronomers hope to use the data to understand better how stars are born and die, and how the Milky Way evolved over billions of years.

Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn will be sequentially aligned and visible at dawn throughout June. The last time this happened was in 2004.

The daredevil known as “Mad Mike” Hughes died in a rocket crash in 2020. He was an amateur rocket builder on a quest to prove that the Earth is flat.

These so-called exoplanets include rocky worlds similar in size to Earth, gas giants larger than Jupiter and even"'mini-Neptunes."

Astronomers spend their careers looking up at the sky, away from Earth.

A trio of Russian cosmonauts have arrived at the International Space Station wearing yellow and blue flight suits similar to the colors of the Ukrainian flag.

Considered the most powerful telescope in space, It will still be five months before NASA can start receiving its images.

The $10 billion infrared observatory is intended as the successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope.

The Amazon founder's space company launched the former football player and co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America” on Saturday morning from West Texas.

Watkins will join the fourth SpaceX Crew next April on her way to entering the ranks of other history-making women at NASA like astronauts Mae Jemison and Sally Ride.

West Coast night owls and East Coast early risers will have the best view of the upcoming lunar eclipse this Friday.

For thousands of years, humans have obsessed over Mars from afar. At first, maybe it was the fact that Mars stands out in the night sky because of its reddish color. But as we learned more about Mars and the conditions there, it was the possibility of life on this distant planet that captured our collective imagination. At its closest, Mars is nearly 40 million miles away from Earth — and we’ve tried for centuries to bridge that distance, using everything from telescopes to flybys and probes. Mars has inspired wild fantasies about distant civilizations and little green men. It’s put a spell on many observers, who hope to unlock its mysteries. On this special episode of The Pulse, we explore what we are learning about Mars, and when we can expect to actually see humans set foot on the red planet.

Also heard on this week’s episode:

Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, talks about our attempts to get closer and closer to the red planet, the important work that’s being done by the Mars rovers, and what it would take to land humans on Mars.
Some people called it the next great leap in space exploration — others, a suicide mission. But for Dan Carey and Leila Zucker, Mars One was a dream come true. Spearheaded by a Dutch company, Mars One aimed to land ordinary people on Mars by the year 2023, where they’d start the red planet’s first human colony. There was just one catch — it was a one-way trip … and survival was not guaranteed. Reporter Liz Tung talks with Carey and Zucker about what made them want to leave their lives on Earth, and start new ones on Mars.
We talk with science historian Jordan Bimm about “Mars jars” and the group of exobiologists — scientists who study extraterrestrial biology — who spearheaded early research about life on Mars.

A NASA spacecraft named Lucy has rocketed into the sky with diamonds on a 12-year quest to explore a record-setting eight asteroids.

Hollywood’s Captain Kirk, 90-year-old William Shatner, has blasted into space and safely returned to Earth in a convergence of science fiction and science reality.

As William Shatner prepares to be beamed up at age 90 for his first real-life spaceflight, he’s bringing out the awe in people around a rural Texas spaceport.

The harvest moon is the last full moon of the summer. This year it will appear to be full for three days with peak illumination occurring at 7:54 p.m. ET Monday.

A potentially dangerous asteroid called Bennu has a 1 in 1,750 chance of hitting Earth between now and the year 2300.

The Amazon founder was accompanied by a hand-picked group: his brother, an 18-year-old from the Netherlands and an 82-year-old aviation pioneer from Texas.

The Hubble Space Telescope is returning to operation more than a month after its original payload computer shut down.

Sir Richard Branson and a crew of three others grazed the edge of space Sunday morning in a rocket built by the British billionaire's company, Virgin Galactic.

For thousands of years, humans have obsessed over Mars from afar. At first, maybe it was the fact that Mars stands out in the night sky because of its reddish color. But as we learned more about Mars and the conditions there, it was the possibility of life on this distant planet that captured our collective imagination. At its closest, Mars is nearly 40 million miles away from Earth — and we’ve tried for centuries to bridge that distance, using everything from telescopes to flybys and probes. Mars has inspired wild fantasies about distant civilizations and little green men. It’s put a spell on many observers, who hope to unlock its mysteries. On this special episode of The Pulse, we explore what we are learning about Mars, and when we can expect to actually see humans set foot on the red planet.

Also heard on this week’s episode:

Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, talks about our attempts to get closer and closer to the red planet, the important work that’s being done by the Mars rovers, and what it would take to land humans on Mars.
Some people called it the next great leap in space exploration — others, a suicide mission. But for Dan Carey and Leila Zucker, Mars One was a dream come true. Spearheaded by a Dutch company, Mars One aimed to land ordinary people on Mars by the year 2023, where they’d start the red planet’s first human colony. There was just one catch — it was a one-way trip … and survival was not guaranteed. Reporter Liz Tung talks with Carey and Zucker about what made them want to leave their lives on Earth, and start new ones on Mars.
We talk with science historian Jordan Bimm about “Mars jars” and the group of exobiologists — scientists who study extraterrestrial biology — who spearheaded early research about life on Mars.

NASA's rovers are labs on wheels, doing work on Mars, while being directed by scientists and engineers here on earth. How do they repair rovers from millions of miles away?

If or when humans get to the red planet, one of the next big questions is: What will they eat there? Would it even be possible to have a healthy or tasty diet?

What Elon Musk has built on the remote mudflats at the southern tip of Texas is astonishing: gantries, fuel storage tanks, an Airstream trailer village, and a silver rocket straight out of Buck Rogers—all fronted by neon letters that spell out “Starbase.”

But can SpaceX coexist with the original feathered inhabitants on the lower Gulf coast? Environmentalists from Brownsville to Washington D.C. are protesting his ambitious vision to build, test and launch next-generation rockets in this fragile ecosystem.

“It’s 24/7. The lights are really bright out here at night. It’s just constant sound and presence of people,” says Stephanie Bilodeau, a conservation bird biologist with the non-profit Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program. “I wouldn’t want to be nesting near any of this if I were a bird.”

Stephanie Bilodeau is a conservation biologist with the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program who monitors nesting areas for migratory shorebirds next to SpaceX.
John Burnett/NPR She comes out with her spotting scope four times a week to look for plovers and red knots. And she says since SpaceX moved in, these migratory shorebirds that cross the continent to nest here have all but disappeared.

“It doesn’t look like much, these vast mudflats,” she says, scanning the expanse of sand, slick with black algae, “but it’s insanely important for shorebirds. The best habitat is right here along Highway 4. And the more expansion there is, the less likely they’re going to be able to nest in the areas that they want to nest.”

Less than 100 yards behind her, a massive heavy-lift crane is preparing the site for the next test launch. When Musk broke ground here in 2014, the fact that he was sandwiched between the Lower Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge and a small colony of sunburned retirees didn’t cause alarm.

Now it does.

His original plans were to test and launch the slimmer Falcon 9 rocket a dozen times a year to loft satellites into orbit. But his plans have expanded—not surprising for the hard-charging Musk, who also owns the electric car company, Tesla. Today, he’s using this limited acreage to build and test his Super Heavy-Starship prototype. In April, NASA awarded SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to build a Starship to take astronauts to the moon, though the contract has since been suspended.

But experimental rockets mean things blow up, and that’s what happened during a test flight on March 30.

“As you can see from the frozen camera view we lost the clock at T-plus 5 minutes, 49 seconds. Looks like we’ve had another exciting test of Starship number 11,” the launch commentator said, optimistically. (On May 5, another Starship prototype reached a height of 6.2 miles and returned for a safe landing on a concrete pad. Later this summer, SpaceX plans to launch another unmanned Starship into earth orbit for the first time.) The March 30 explosion showered debris for five miles, including onto the wildlife refuge which is classified as critical habitat.

“These rockets, these ships are more massive and create that much more thrust than the rockets that were originally proposed to be launched there,” says David Newstead, director of the coastal bird program for the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program.

But what most chaps locals is that SpaceX has been closing off access to popular Boca Chica Beach much more frequently than the company originally proposed. Earlier this month, the local district attorney threatened legal action against SpaceX for unauthorized road closures and for its private security officers exceeding their authority.

SpaceX activities are overseen by the FAA—which declined comment—and Cameron County in Texas. The top elected official there, County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr., says they both should be more vigilant of the private space company.

“We probably weren’t doing what we should have been, so I understand (the public’s) concern and we’re trying to do a better job going forward,” Treviño says. “By the same token, we need them and want them to succeed.”

Starbase employs nearly 1,700 people with a payroll of over $80 million. For a historically poor county where the best and brightest often felt they had to leave the Rio Grande Valley, SpaceX has been a godsend. Musk—believed to be the world’s richest person—has been generous when the moment called for it. Within minutes of the Starship 11 explosion—with rocket parts still smoldering on the landscape—he tweeted that he was donating $30 million to Cameron County and the City of Brownsville for schools and downtown revitalization.

Tony Martinez was mayor of Brownsville when Musk chose South Texas for his launch complex over Georgia, Florida, and Puerto Rico

“He (Musk) told me, ‘Mr. Mayor, one day you’re going to read in the history books that a man left Brownsville and went to Mars,’ ” Martinez says. “Anytime you have progress, there’s nothing that doesn’t come with some downside.”

Musk is turning Starbase into his company town. He continues to buy up private plots tucked amid the mudflats, he expects the launch compound to grow by several thousand more workers, and he recently asked for his own post office.

In March, SpaceX applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers—which oversees the nation’s wetlands—for permission to fill in 17 acres of wetland to expand its launch facility. The major addition would include an expanded solar farm, parking lots, a new launching pad, a desalination plant and a power plant.

The EPA and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service along with national conservation groups such as the American Bird Conservancy are opposed to the expansion plans in their current form, saying it is incompatible with the wildlife refuge.

SpaceX, headquartered in Hawthorne, Calif., did not respond to a request for comment.

Aerospace facilities can coexist with fragile environments. Kennedy Space Center in Florida is inside the boundaries of Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and Canaveral National Seashore, which were created after the launch center’s founding in 1962.

“For over 50 years, we’ve had a partnership with both the refuge and the seashore as we grew and operated the space port, and we all carried on our missions,” says Don Dankert, with the Environmental Management Branch at KSC. “We have a longstanding history and I think we’ve done an exceptional job.”

He says as part of their ecological monitoring program, the launch complex turns off lights during sea turtle nesting season and has relocated gopher tortoise burrows in the path of construction. Recently, the Florida Sierra Club urged the space center to closely monitor water quality in neighboring Indian River Lagoon as KSC expands its footprint to make room for more commercial space activity. A KSC spokesperson says they are fully committed to “minimizing impacts to the natural and built environment.”

Few believe that pushback from environmentalists will slow down Elon Musk.

“He is used to getting his way. He didn’t get his way in California so he just left,” says Jim Chapman, with Save RGV in the Rio Grande Valley. “So now he wants to get his way here and so far nobody is really calling him on it.”

Most of those retirees who lived next to SpaceX in Boca Chica Village have sold out and moved away, though a handful of unhappy holdouts remains.

Then there’s Homer Pompa, a 71-year-old Vietnam vet, psychedelic blues singer and hermit who lives three miles away in a trailer with an assortment of cats, dogs and goats.

“Welcome to heaven,” he says from atop his three-story prayer tower/observation deck. His lookout has a commanding view of SpaceX on one side, with the rippling Rio Grande and Mexican prairies on the other side. Pompa says he and his friends have made peace with his aerospace neighbors.

“I got badger friends, rattlesnake friends, skunk friends, possum friends. I got a lotta friends out here, man.”

Have the rocket tests chased away any of his friends?

“No, they ain’t scarin’ (expletive),” he replies with a grin.

Nevertheless, the FAA has told SpaceX it needs to draw up a new Environmental Assessment as part of its license application to launch the Starship.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

This could have been the day that finally answered the burning question: Are there aliens out there? Sadly, we’ll still have to wait.

A U.S. government report on UFOs says it found no evidence of aliens but acknowledged 143 reports of “unidentified aerial phenomena” since 2004 that could not be explained.

The report was released Friday by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence with substantial input from the military. The study is part of the most significant public effort so far to deal with decades of speculation, rumor and unhinged conspiracy theories about UFOs.

Some of the most intriguing cases come from Navy pilots who reported seeing UFOs — and filming some of them — off the East Coast of the U.S. over a period of months in 2014 and 2015.

The pilots, including some who have spoken publicly, say the mystery objects moved with exceptional speed, agility and acceleration that they had never seen before. And in some incidents, the pilots said the objects went underwater.

The report was mandated by Congress and points to an increased willingness of government officials to discuss UFOs without fear of open ridicule.

Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, pushed for the study and said in a statement, “This report is an important first step in cataloging these incidents, but it is just a first step. The Defense Department and intelligence community have a lot of work to do before we can actually understand whether these aerial threats present a serious national security concern.”

A recent rise in sightings

Many of the unexplained sightings come from the past couple years as the Air Force and the Navy have put in place formal procedures for reporting such incidents.

For starters, the government is using the term “unusual aerial phenomena” to avoid referring to UFOs and the stigma that has often gone with talking about them.

Still, the report noted that, “The limited amount of high-quality reporting on unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP) hampers our ability to draw firm conclusions.”

While the report could not provide many answers, it did offer a range of possibilities.

It said the UFOs, or UAPs, could be part of a secret U.S. government or military project, but did not cite any such cases.

In addition, they could be part of a clandestine program in another country with advanced aerial capabilities, like Russia or China, though the report offered no such proof this was the case.

In some incidents the UFOs showed “unusual flight characteristics. These observations could be the result of sensor errors, spoofing, or observer misperception and require additional rigorous analysis,” the report added.

The main contents of the report were widely leaked to the media earlier this month, and few minds are likely to be changed.

For UFO skeptics, the report will probably reinforce their doubts that aliens are periodically whizzing past but not bothering to send a clear message.

For UFO enthusiasts, the report’s acknowledgement of so many unexplained objects is likely to generate calls for more resources to study the issue.

U.S. intelligence agencies and military were required to produce this report after funding was included in a huge spending bill approved by Congress late last year that focused mostly on COVID-19 relief.

Former President Donald Trump signed the bill on Dec. 27, which then gave the Office of the Director of National Intelligence 180 days to produce the report and send it to Congress.

How it began

As NPR’s Bill Chappell noted earlier this month, the real starting point for UFO speculation, and possible government involvement, dates to Roswell, New Mexico, in July 1947. According to UFO true believers, that’s when the U.S. Air Force allegedly found seized an alien spacecraft and its occupants.

In reality, an Air Force balloon intended for spying on the Soviet Union’s nuclear program crashed near Roswell during a test flight. The Air Force quickly cleaned up its the crash site and was unwilling to talk about the clandestine program, known as Project Mogul.

The event launched UFO conspiracies still going strong to this day.

The Air Force did start its own program to investigate UFO sightings in 1947, called Project BLUE BOOK. Over the next two decades, 12,618 sightings were reported. When the project ended in 1969, around 700 sightings were still categorized as “unidentified,” according to the National Archives.

To this day, the faithful, and the merely curious, make the trek to Roswell.

In recent years, current and former government officials have been more willing to broach the topic.

Former President Barack Obama was asked about UFOs in May on The Late Late Show with James Corden on CBS.

“What is true, and I’m actually being serious here, is that there is footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are,” Obama said.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

This story is from The Pulse, a weekly health and science podcast.

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When NASA chemist Julio Padilla wants to vet new “sniffers” for the agency’s odor lab, he uses what’s called the “10 bottle test.”

“Three of them are blanks, which is just distilled water with no smell, and seven others have a smell to them,” he said, lining up the small bottles.

The seven scented bottles comprise a kind of menu of strong scents — from floral and minty, to pungent and putrid — all of which come labeled only with numbers.

The job of the potential sniffers is to identify the blanks — “the most important part,” Padilla said, as it determines whether or not someone qualifies as a sniffer — in addition to distinguishing between the seven other smells. If they can do that, it means their noses are perfectly calibrated for lab-level sniffing.

Padilla offered a demo.

“All right, so start with one,” he said, and took a sniff. “Smells like ether — so I would mark it down … as being the smell of etherol.”

He gave it another sniff. “Doesn’t smell too bad,” he said. “I love the smell of ether, actually.”

The next couple bottles were harder to tell. Padilla guessed that the second bottle might be floral, and that the third one was a blank.

On the fourth bottle, he took a deep whiff — and instantly recoiled.

“Ugh! I shouldn’t have done that,” he said. “So that one’s definitely putrid. Ugh. It smells like rotten eggs basically.”

As it turns out, this test is just the tip of a very stinky iceberg at the odor lab, which is part of NASA’s White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico.

The main job is to sniff out some of the most horrible smells you can imagine, to help NASA engineers figure out how to contain them.

The smell of space You might not think there’s much to smell in space — but, according to the odor lab’s manager, Susana Tapia-Harper, space missions are known for getting pretty ripe.

“Especially space vehicles that have been in use for a long period of time, and that don’t get a lot of fresh air over that time,” she said, “there have been reports that those kind of smell like locker rooms.”

Astronaut Scott Kelly once said that the International Space Station smelled remarkably similar to a jail he once toured — featuring similar “combinations of antiseptic, garbage, and body odor.”

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly, Expedition 25 flight engineer, is pictured near three stowage bags floating freely in the Unity node of the International Space Station. (NASA) It makes sense, if you think about it. Most space missions take place in cramped quarters, which in addition to being their workplace serve as astronauts’ cafeteria, gym, and, yes, their bathroom.

“If you can imagine in space, you can’t open a window,” Tapia-Harper said. “And if there’s a stinky situation in the bathroom and it’s close quarters, so there’s not much fresh air to air things out.”

The source of some smells — like kitchen trash — can at least be tied up in a bag. But that’s not the case for all.

“There are those smells, like sweat and farts, that aren’t able to be contained,” she said, “and those do start to accumulate over time.”