Things happening in the science community. Well have brief presentations and then open up questions here at the knew sooem, the phone lines and the social media. Eclipse2017. But everything that you hear and much more on the websites at nasa. Eclip eclipse2017. Gov. And remember nasa. Gov eclipse live. Ive got a lot on my mind here. 99 years in the making. A total Solar Eclipse across america. Were going to talk about the science. Im going to introduce our panelists and then turn it over to thomas who has joined us again and hes got interesting attire on. Hes change on me today. And of course social media, send those questions in, eclipse2017 and well get to those. So im excited about the science so let me introduce you to these incredible scientists. Thomas, back again, nice red. I think that means something there. The associate director at nasa headquarters. Angela desjardins, Principle Investigator at the eclipse ballooning project at Montana University bozeman, going out to the west coast, linda shore, executive director of the society of pacific in San Francisco, david boboltz, solar physics in the division of sines at the National Science foundation in arlington, virginia. Angela speck, she has many titles, professor of astrophysics and director of astronomy at the university of missouri columbia. Matt penn, astronomer, National Solar observe serve toir tucson, arizona. With that ill turn it over to you thomas im really excited to be part of this panel because science is such an important part of being an e cleps. Im going to kick off presentations here about specific topics. Ange angela, i would like to start with you. Talking about observing the eclipse from the edge of space. Go for it, angela. Absolutely. The goal of the eclipse ballooning project is to connect to a basic human sense of wonder by providing live footage from the edge of space. So how did this edge of space footage come about. How did the idea come about . About four years ago i was doing my daily peruse l of news and i saw a story about a pilot who accomplished the difficult task of getting his plane in just the right place at just the right time over an ocean so that his passengers could see the total Solar Eclipse from the air. My first reaction was huh, why would they do that. Why would they not just sit in a boat in the ocean and wait for the eclipse to come across. There must be Something Special about seeing the eclipse from the air. So i thought about that a little bit and thought, hmmm, if the eclipse is more interesting from the air than from the ground, what would it be like from a High Altitude balloon where you can see the curvature of the earth and the blackness of space. I did some research and i found out that one group had taken footage from a High Altitude balloon of a total Solar Eclipse before with a gopro from australia in 2012 and indeed the footage from that vantage point, seeing the shadow of the moon crossing across the earth was spectacular. If you can show the first video, please. This is some footage of some students launching High Altitude balloons. As i work with nasa education i also knew that there were over 100 student led High Altitude ballooning projects across the country. An idea occurred to me to bring these student teams together and provide awe inspiring footage to the public for the 2017 total Solar Eclipse. But i knew that for the footage to really have an impact it would have to be live. Therefore, we took the Nasa Science Mission and nasa space grant and teamed them together to create the eclipse ballooning project. A project that at the time we had no idea how to do. Nobody had ever live streamed video from one High Altitude balloon of a total Solar Eclipse before, let alone dozens across a continent. Luckily an affinity for solving problems is what draws students into science and engineering fields. If you could play the next video, please. So after a lot of hard work we have over 50 student teams from across the country ready to stream High Altitude video from dozens of locations across the path of totality, sharing inspiring imagination sparking footage with the public live. We hope you check out our footage on eclipse day. Thanks. Thanks so much, angela. And what im going to do now is kick it over to linda who is talking about taking this eclipse as an opportunity to learn and also to inspire the next generation of scientists. Linda, take it away. Hi, thanks. Its great to be here. So i wanted to talk just a little bit about not the current eclipse coming up but one from the past that was really interesting to forming my society, the Astronomical Society of the pacific. And i think its an interesting one to look at in terms of the science. Every eclipse tells scientists something new about the sun. And allows scientists to use new techniques. And this eclipse is no different and the scientist on the panel are going to talk about that. But think about eclipses prior to having photography. Eclipses were studied, the beautiful corona was observed. But you couldnt photograph. What they did is they sketched. Scientists would sketch. And i thought about that and i realized, its kind of difficult. Its pitch dark during an eclipse. You heart is races because youre excited and here you are with a pen trying to sketch the corona. But there was a eclipse in 1989, the new years day eclipse which passed through california. I didnt go coast to coast the way this one is going to. But it passed north of San Francisco and then took a curve and went through montana, the dakotas and then on into canada. On that eclipse there was a group of amateur astronomers who joined forces with a Photography Society in San Francisco. Brandnew. These were folks who got their cameras and were super excited about the new technology. They joined forces and went north into the wine country. And this slide shows one of the first grafs ever takphotographs an eclipse. This is a time exposure showing the different phases the partial phases approaching totality. Imagine how excited this photographer was to develop this plate. And for the first time ap chur the partial phases of an eclipse. This was really remarkable. And what happened after this is what is the group of amateurs and professionals went back to San Francisco a month later, shared their photographs, shared what they learned and they had such a great time forming this community that they decided that very evening to form a society, the Astronomical Society of the pacific. And while we were once a small provencal society located in San Francisco. This sour 128th year. Now were a National Society and were actually dedicated to education and outreach and helping people of every kind, whether they be children, students were teachers, professors, college teachers, rangers, girl scout leaders, everybody, learn astronomy and be able to share that knowledge with other people. And thats what were about. So this particular eclipse and youre going to hear this later from the scientists as well is going to excite a lot of people. And many of them watching this eclipse may choose astronomy as a career. I did, in 1979, a partial eclipse of the sun was visible in San Francisco. I was a broadcasting major. I happened to be interested in science and i took a bunch of tools to the Student Union and showed people how to watch a partial eclipse safely. Most people didnt know it was happening. So with me i had eclipse glasses, which are very important for viewing the partial phases and people were amazed that they could look at the sun and see it. I had ways to project the image on to cardboard using pinholes, using tiny holes and allows a single image of the sun to appear on a piece of white cardboard. And then you can have a lot of fun abnd if you have a lot of holes like a kol lacolander. I decided to become an astronomy educator. It was great to change the lives of the people watching the eclipse with me. Let me show you a little bit about whats going to happen for this eclipse. So if i can have the slide. A lot of you have seen this. This shows the path of totality across the u. S. Starting in oregon, in an hour and a half the shadow will traverse the u. S. And exit in the carolinas. But what i would like for you to Pay Attention to are the partial phases. There are many many many millions of people who are not going to get to the path of totality because of time, because of money, lack of resources, transportation. Theres lots of reasons people cant travel. The eclipse is going to be just as imagimagical for them if we provide them with the materials they need to see the eclipse safely and we can use this as a teaching moment. This is an opportunity to reach out to youth across the country and teach them a little astronomy as the partial is unfolding. Take a look at the map. All of the continental u. S. Sees at least a 70 partial eclipse. 70 of the sun will be obscured by the moon. Find the place where you live on the map. Maybe you live in detroit, atlanta, new orleans, the rural parts of new mexico, all of you are going to be able to experience this partial. At the Astronomical Society of the pacific were particularly interested in reaching underserved communities and children who represent communities underrepresented in science. We want to make sure that those kids are engaged fully in the eclipse, even if its a partial, so that they might decide to become an astronomer like i said. So what i have is some exam. S of activities that the Astronomical Society of the pacific has developed and assimilated across the country to make sure kids are engaged. Let me give you the example of one. This is a scale of the earth and the moon on a series of rulers. Let me explain. This is the moon. This is the earth on that side. And youll notice that the earth is a 1inch diameter marble and 30 inches away, 30 earths laid end to end is where we place the moon. And the moon is a quarter are of the diameter. This is a quarter of an inch. Quarter of a diameter of the earth. So this is an actual scale model. First of all you might be surprised because lots of the pictures and images that you see, the earth and moon are much closer together than this. But this is the actual distance and size. So thats a learning experience in and of itself. And now we can use this to actually model whats going to happen in terms of the shadow of the moon hitting the earth and what thats going to look like. You have everything to scale, so the sun and the shadows are going to work to scale too. What you can do is take this outside and the tricky part is you use the actual sun in the sky and you manipulate the stick so that the shadow of the moon is cast on the earth. And i cant do that in the studio because i dont have the sun right here. But i have a photograph. This is a photograph showing what the earth ball is going to look like if you line things up properly, which is pretty easily to do. And if you look carefully, what i love about this model is the very very dark shadow youre seeing in the middle of this marble representing the earth is the total eclipse location. If you live on the earth in that super super dark shadow, you get to see the total eclipse of the sun. But you may notice on the outside of the very dark circle is another shadow not as dark. Thats where youre going to see the partial eclipse. And so using this activity youre learning about shadows, about the dark, the light shadow, youre learning about the geometry of the eclipse. You can do a lot of things with this model. And this is just one of many activities that the Astronomical Society of the pacific has developed and disseminated to rangers in parks, libraries across the country, museums, schools, lots of different places with support from nasa and also the National Science foundati foundation. So that gives you some idea of how you can reach kids across the u. S. To make sure everybody is engaged so that astronomy can be diverse and inclusive and a wonderful experience for all. Thanks so much, linda. Youre going to talk about some of the most amazing telescopes looking at the sun. Take it away, david. Yeah, sure. So one of the things that most people probably dont know is that the National Science foundation is the steward for all groundbased astronomy in the United States. So nasa does a lot of the space based stuff. We do most of the ground based stuff. And we do this through our nationallaboratories. One is the National Solar observatory. And another is the atmospheric research. They do things this is a Beautiful Image of the sun. What one might ask is why does nsf or nasa or the federal government for that matter even care about solar science. What are the sort of things that i mean, dont we know all of the questions havent we answer all of the questions about the sun that we would want to ask . And the answer so that is no. And so basically from nsf perspective, we look at the sun from an astronomy perspective and also from a sunearth connection within our geospace science section. And so from the say tron astron perspective, we look at the sun as a star. Its the nearby laboratory that we can use to study stars like our sun and then try to expand that to stars that are further away, much further away. And we also look at the sun and its interaction with the planets in our solar system. Theres a number of planets outside of our own solar system that have been discovered. I think the count is over 2,000 confirmed and over 4,000 are candidates. Wae wa we want to apply the theories that we get from studying the sun to those systems. And we want to figure out and talk about tit. So the sun has all of these interesting phenomena like solar flairs, the solar wind and all of those things are collectively known as what we consider space weather. And so next slide please. And so a lot of that space weather occurs in this region of the roar the corona. Thats what well see during the total eclipse. Heres an image of it. Thats where a lot of the action is. Matt is going to talk about his coroen l signs thcience hes go do from the ground. But the interesting thing is theres a bit of the gap in the coverage of the corona and thats where we want to use and do science for the eclipse. And use the eclipse for that type of science. Another thing were doing at the nsf is we have, through our National Centers for atmospheric research, were going to fly our gulf stream jet, fly it along the path of the eclipse and use an instrument called an infrared spectrometer and take images of the corona during the eclipse. And then the final, last slide. And so we, as i mentioned before, were the steward of ground based astronomy. Right now we have two different Construction Projects within nsf. One is called the Large Survey Telescope and thats in south america, chile. Thats going to observe over stars and galaxies over a course of several days and repeat it over and over again surveying the universe. The one im involved in is this telescope right here. The daniel k solar telescope or kdst. This is going to be the largest solar telescope ever built. A 4 meter diameter mirror, 13 feet across. If you can imagine the amount of solar light that we can collect with this type of mirror. Its going to be an incredible High Resolution machine. Its going to be able to observe the sun at 2 20 to 30 or pixs on the sun at to 30 kilometers across. And thats where the interesting science were getting down to the interesting science. So with that ill hand it back to thomas. Thanks so much. Truly exciting. Whats happening in that telescope and the other things. Many of the stories about eclipses, you know, dont actually have to do with astronomy but have to do with nature, the atmospheric effects. And angela, youre going to talk about that. Why dont you tell us about your work. Thanks, thomas. So weve already heard a lot about how the space and looking at the corona and doing research on the sun itself and weve heard about engaging with the public. What im going to talk about is kind of somewhere in between all of that. So we want to do research on the impact of the eclipse on the ground, that is the atmosphere, the animals and the plants and also how we can use that to engage the public. In some cases to encourage people to become scientists and then others to turn them into fans of science. Lets start with the atmosphere. If i can have that first video. We know that over the course of the day the sun comes up and it goes up to its highest point and then back down and over that time we get Different Levels of elimination from the sun. But during the eclipse we have an added thing thats changing illumination. So the video is showing you what the illumination looks like as the sun is moving across the sky and now it is being eclipsed so were getting a decrease in the amount of sunlight. Thats going to have multiple effects. If we start with the atmosphere, you can imagine that as you block out the sun with this big rock, the moon, youre going to decrease the temperature. We know it gets colder when the cloud comes in front of the sun. Now its a big rock and the temperature is going to drop. Theres still science to be done in terms of understanding the magnitude of that drop, how it changes across the course of the eclipse. But also that drop generates air pressure changes which gets rise to air currents. So there will be experiments being done that will involve measuring air temperatures and air currents and that will involved visit science where we involve the public in collecting data. If we could move on to the second photograph, this is showing you a bird in the sky during an eclipse. Actually an annual eclipse. But we know that animals react differently at different times of day. And we know from anecdotal evidence from previous eclipses, you get animals reacting with the change in light and maybe the change in temperature. We know towards twilight the bar bird will do the swarming around and making noise showing you theyre going to bed and then it goes dark and they thats going probably during the ee climbclit different birds will react differently. Farm animals tend to go to the barn because it is bedtime. Insects that chirp at night may start chirping once it gets dark. One of the things we want to do is be able to really collect data. Not only is it going to be done on the basis of universities like, you know, schools that have animal and plant science programs, but also with the public through the naturalist app and life response, which is a program at the California Academy of sciences, where we want to collect exactly what all of these animals are doing as it gets dark. So even before it gets completely dark with the change in brightness of the sun, what do the animals do . What do we see . What do we hear . Lets move on to the last slide. Now, this is showing you how the eclipse interacts with a plant. This is a tree, and as youve got the leaves overlapping on the tree, youre making pinholes. Each of those little holes acts as a pinhole camera. What you are seeing is lots and lots of energies of that partial eclipse sun. So thats one way in which a plant is interacting with the sun, but thats just visual and it is pretty cool to see, but some plants will do things at night like you have some plants that will close up, you have some plants, for instance, some varieties that will unfurl during darkness. So as well as looking at the animals, what they do as we get eclipsed, we also want to study the plants. So there are all of these different ways in which we are seeing how our own Natural World is interacting with that change in light and it helps us to understand not only how science is connected but how much we rely on the sun and helps us test some ideas about the things we do with plants and animals on the ground every day. With that i will hand it back to thomas. Thank you. Thanks so much. So, matt, you know some of the science we do with professional astronomers but some are with amateurs. You have a citizen. Tell us about it. The thing that excites me about the eclipse is millions of people across the country can walk out on their porch in their slippers and collect world class data. We dont have to travel to a large telescope on top of the mountain. You can go in your backyard and using modest sized instruments collect Important Research data. If we go to first slide, the citizen cate experiment involves 200 volunteers stationed at 68 points across the country. They have identical equipment and will take data during the eclipse. The key is at any given site you will see the corona about two minutes at that location. The corona is big but changes slowly and in two minutes we cant see changes we want to study in the solar wind. If we take data as the shadow of the moon crosses the country and combine that data into a continuous movie we can observe the corona for 90 minutes and see changes we wouldnt otherwise detect. It is exciting to be involved in this project. After the eclipse, the volunteers will keep their equipment due to the generous donations from the federal and our private and corporate sponsors, but right now at this current stage we have some students go to indonesia last year and get onthejob training at a solar ee climbs. They came back to the u. S. And have trained all of the volunteers for the augusty ve e sent in a series of 11 workshops. They are practicing as we speak and getting ready for the day on august 21. How does the data fit into the big picture when we study the sun . We have heard nasa has a fleet studying the sun. We will see some of the Nasa Missions have a data gap. Thats in the lower part of the corona where we want to study the solar wind where it seems it can have a big effect. We are superimposing our data from the indonesian eclipse on to a set of nasa observations that shows where our eclipse data will fit in. Theres a lot of interesting physics and exciting things that go on. The sun is really hiding science in that data gap that we want to get at, and thats what were going to try to do with the eclipse data. You know, we talked a little bit about the space weather impact and how it affects us here on the earth. When we are trying to understand space weather and solar storms, it is similar to understanding weather on the earth. If you want to know if a storm will hit a particular city and when it will hit a particular city, we need to understand the wind on the earth. We are studying solar wind to predict space weather. We know from nasa measurements solar wind accelerates a lot in this region in this data gap but we dont know how it happens yet. If we go to the last slide everybody in this room accelerated today when you got on to a freeway. So at the bottom of the freeway on ramp you are going at a slow speed and you hit the gas pedal in your car and you sped up and merged with traffic going at 60 miles an hour we know the solar wind is doing the same thing in the region of the solar corona but we dont have the measure to show how that philosophy is changing, what is the acceleration. Hopefully after we collect all of our data with no clouds we will come back after the eclipse and tell you exactly what is pushing on the gas pedal for the solar wind in this part of the corona. It is really Exciting Research youre going to do with so many excited students, we hope, right . And hopefully our future colleagues, too. Exactly. So what im going to do is before i turn it over to lynn just ask one question from each of you, and i will go in the same order as we just did, and that is what do you expect is the most important impact from this eclipse. I will start it with you. Okay. For me the most important impact of the eclipse is really and opportunity for us to come together as a country. You know, everything thats going on in the country and the earlier panel mentioned kind of the separation between science and the public and i think this is a really amazing chance to just open the publics eyes to wonder and to get people thinking about really the most amazing natural phenomenon that happens on the surface of the earth, a total Solar Eclipse, and to get people to wonder and just incorporate that into thinking about whats going on in our cosmos and to come together in that very human way. Great. A sense of wonder. Linda, how would you answer that question . I think it was stated perfectly, and the only thing i would add to that is what i said earlier, that this really is an opportunity to reach children that we havent reached before with Stem Education. I like to say that astronomy is a very democratic science. The same laboratory that arches over the sky for scientists is the same sky that is available to everybody, whether you live in cities or in the countryside or no matter, you know, what part of the world youre in, and this is an opportunity to engage the citizenry in an incredible event that has shaped humanity for thousands of years. And if we can encourage more people to get into astronomy and space science, thats fabulous. But if what we do is excite people about science in general so that theyre curious and they want to know more about astronomy, thats fabulous, too. Thanks so much. David, how would you answer it . I completely agree with what linda said about were very concerned with building a new stem workforce for the nation, and so and were also looking for new users for our telescopes. So astronomy is sort of a gateway to all different kinds of science, and so we think that this eclipse will be a wonderful opportunity to get people engaged in Stem Education and stem. And, you know, it will be better for the nation. How about you . Well, so i love the stuff thats already been said and obviously, you know, encouraging people to perceiving science is great. I would like to go a step further. I think that one of the things that has happened in recent years is that scientists have seen this, you know, kind of weirdos and were not normal and the public in general is not necessarily a fan of science. So i would like to generate science fans. I want to kind of qualify that a little bit. So i like football, and i mean american football because, you know, with my accent that might not be clear. I like american football and im 53 and petite. Im never going to play american football. I know the rules, i watch the game, i can be, you know, a monday morning quarterback, all of that, but that doesnt mean that im ever going to be professional or even amateur but i appreciate the game and im a fan. And so what i would like to see is that this is an opportunity to be able to draw people from across the country into being fans of science and really loving science, even if it is not something that they themselves practice. All right. Finally, matt. Well, i agree with angela and, you know, maybe even go a step further, is to get the equipment and the training in the hands of people across the country and to enable them to continue with Citizen Science after the eclipse. We would like to use the eclipse to capture their attention. Theres no way you can avoid noticing a Solar Eclipse, it is a spectacular event. But after the eclipse we would like to extend their interest further and keep them observing and engaging in astronomy. Thanks so much. Blaine. A couple of things before we open the question. First i want to make a slight correction and i see angela has interesting items on the desk she is going to share. Dave, weve had an interesting conversation a couple of days and he is an incredible portfolio and he does a lot more as program director, not just solar physics. I want to say his portfolio is larger, the Program Division of National Sciences. Angela, you have some interesting things there. Yes, i want to show a great way of being able to observe the total Solar Eclipse. On the nasa website there are actually 3d printed files so that you can download the file and find your nearest 3d printer, and theres one for every state. So this is my home state of montana, and theres a hole in the center of each particular state. What you can do on eclipse day for the partial eclipse is just hold your favorite state or your home state in the path of the sun and it will she that hole on the ground. Oftentimes we call these pinhole projectors. That way you can see what the path of the sun is, you know, being blocked by the moon. Thats just another way if you dont have a chance to get your handson a pair of glasses to interact, to see what is happening with the partial eclipse. So theres all of the different states and theres also one of the United States. Thats a fun way to get your hands hands on the eclipse. Excellent. If you are joining us, were here at the museum in our Nations Capital talking about the upcoming august 21 total Solar Eclipse across america. We have a scientist here. Were going to open it up for questions. Social media eclipse2017. Were going to start here if you would wait for the mike. We have a number of questions on the phone and of course we will go to social media. So lets see. Seth, youve got your hand up. Here we go again. Thank you. Seth borenstein, the Associated Press for thomas to start with. Can you give us a sense at least in magnitude or figures of how much more this eclipse will be observed scientifically, not by people, regular people, but by astronomers compared to previous ones . Is this going to be the most observed scientifically eclipse ever . Also for angela, you talked about the wonder and the beauty of the High Altitude balloons. This briefing sort of about the science i thought. What do you hope to learn besides just give us beautiful pictures . Is there Something Like what man has told us, what can we learn from hi altitude balloon cincinnati. What im going to do is try to answer your question first. First of all, what we did for this particular eclipse at nasa and you may have done similar things at the National Science foundation, we had an announcement for opportunities that basically actually funded researchers to develop Research Programs associated with that eclipse, aside of the helio physics position, and also other research was supported through that. Through that research not only will some of the Research Focus on the corona be performed, but also new technologies will be tested that have the potential of programs flying on a balloon or in space later. So for us, this is the eclipse we are most focused on, and undoubtedly the one that will lead to the most researchers and most. So the answer to the question about the science that balloons are going to do, theres actually three pieces of science that were focused on. Really two different projects, one providing the live feeds and one looking at changes in the atmosphere. So normally the atmosphere experiences change with night and day, but the eclipse coming across the country and the dark shadow at an average of about 1500 Miles Per Hour is going to set up waves in the atmosphere, and the temperature changes will also affect that. So were going to have a series of weather balloons in many locations across the country that will launch every 15 minutes or so and be collecting information about how the atmosphere is responding. In addition, all of the footage that well get from the balloons that are doing the video and the still images will be able to capture images of the clouds which can also tell us information about how our atmosphere is responding to the eclipse. The second piece of science thats being done is all of our footage will go into a project called the eclipse mega movie project. The idea here is that we know the exact surface of the moon from previous satellite studies, and looking at the baileys bs, which are just the last little bits of light before the total Solar Eclipse we can actually use that data in collecting lots of different images to learn about the exact surface of the sun actually. So using the moon surface to learn about the surface of the sun. So thats the second piece. The third piece is that it turns out at High Altitude where the balloons are going to be is an analogy in temperature and pressure to the surface of mars. We are partnering with nasaames researchers to fly resilient bacteria on the balloons to get a feel in different balloons across the country but all happening statement what these bacteria go through so that we can learn that analogy for the surface of mars. So nasa has done this kind of study on a nasa balloon before but not on multiple balloons at the same time. So those are the three key pieces of science. And, seth, thats an interesting story line by itself, those experiments. So for the media here, you may want to get take a deeper dive in that astro biologies experiments. Im going to stay here for one more question, and we have social media folks, if you want to, but we have a question here and then going to the phone line. Name and affiliation. Hanna with space. Com. Are the go pro cameras on balloons be pointed down towards the earth and watching the shadow of the moon . Thats a great question. Just a minor correction to the question. So the technology that we use actually is raspberry pie. The cameras are actually raspberry pie cameras. Actually the teams will be looking at different things. So the cameras are actually controllable from the ground. It is really great. You know, speaking of technology, thats a really interesting thing, where Cutting Edge Technology with so much we are doing. So the teams can actually control from the ground through a satellite link and other radio links what the camera is looking at. And on most of the balloons theyll have also cameras pointing in lots of Different Directions so they can choose cameras as the balloon is spinning to look at what they want to. We have some teams that will be wanting to look at the sun to see what is happening in totality. We have some that will be looking at the ground. For me personally, it is the shadow, like looking down on earth and seeing the shadow coming across, that is really going to be spectacular. But the teams will kind of choose what they want to show. My follow is with looking at the shadow, is there anything scientific we can really learn other than, i guess, if you are looking at the atmosphere, is there anything about the shadow itself that will teach us something about the eclipse or Earth Science or something . You know, i think that there is. I cant answer that question in detail. I would have to follow up with you, or the person from noaa on the earlier panel could probably answer that question in more detail. Perhaps one possibility angela, are you there . Angela speck . Im here. Do you have an answer to that, because youre thinking about the shadows and atmospherical effects a lot. Right. So theres a couple of different things. One of the things is that, you know, were now at the point where looking at the shadow and understanding exactly where its going, being able to see it from the outside and the inside at the same time is going to have an impact on how were looking at atmospheric effects. But im not sure, but i think your question was the shadow itself. I think what it is going to do is cast an idea that was put forward for how we determine the shape of the shadow. So theres some interesting effects that happen to do with the fact that as the other angela said, youve got these craters and mountains on the moon that give rise to baileys beads, but they also mean that you get this interesting visual effect, that the shadow of the moon is not actually a circle. In fact, it is not even just a stretched out circle. It is kind of an irregular polygon. Having data thats letting us see the shadow in all directions is going to help us see how well did we do in working out what that shadow is going to be. Excellent. Were going to go to the phone lines first and then head over to jasons corner there with the social media and all of the traffic all over the world actually, preparing for the august 21 total Solar Eclipse across america. On the phone lines, who is up first . Rebecca, atlantic. Rebecca, are you there . Hi. Can you hear me . Loud and clear. Caller okay. I guess i went away while you were calling on me. Sorry. I guess i have a couple of questions. Im wondering first of all why you all think this will be an event that will entice people and get them interested in science. If you can explain i guess what your thoughts are about that, anyone who has experienced one of these or has not but is looking forward to experiencing one of these, what about this event will create that kind of inspiration for people . Ill start with you perhaps, matt, before i go to angela on the phone. Yes. So ive only seen two total eclipses and ive seen it by trying to do science on both of them, too, so my perspective may be skewed. First of all i believe the co n corona is fantastic and delicate and awesome, one of the most spectacular things you can see. Second thing is in the middle of the day the sun is not supposed to go away. You get a primeal feeling something is wrong, this is not supposed to happen. It is a wonderful way to understand where we fit in in this cosmic perspective that thomas mentioned before. You can actually get a three dimensional sense of where youre at. So i suppose, you know, if you are really, you know, adamant about not being affected by the Solar Eclipse, you might be driving down the road and try to ignore it and turn on your headlights, but i have a feeling about 90 of people in the path will be ah struck wiwe struck w event. Angela, anything to add . Yeah. I think that what matt said is great. We have you know, we know that people affected this early by this it is such a you know, the change in light is so fast and what you get to see is so amazing, that even people that chase eclipses and have seen dozens of them will still be wowed by this. They will still have this intake of breath as it happens, and people excited about the idea. You know, i think this is one of those things where even if you havent seen one youre aware of the concept. Once you start to hear more about it people get excited. I have been going all over the country doing talks, trying to help people get excited but also get ready because it is going to be such a huge event. There will be people like, you know, i wasnt sure but then i heard you talk about whats going to happen and now im really excited, and thats people that havent even seen one yet. So, you know, i think that what were going to see is there will be people who are like this is really for a lot of people a onceinalifetime opportunity. It is expensive to travel the world following these things, and so they will make the effort to come and see it. And then theyre going to be so blown away by how amazing it is and just the overall feeling of it is not just visual. It is an all over experience, that they will be changed by it. Next question on the phone. Taylor. Hi. Can you guys hear me . Loud and clear. All right. Im from wkns. Were an npr affiliate station in west kentucky. What we wanted to know is where is nasa going to be posted during the eclipse . Weve heard rumors about you guys coming to west kentucky where the greatest duration of totality is going to be. We just want to know where you guys will be posted. Thomas, what im going to do is kick it over to alex. He is our expert who has been thinking about the eclipse for how many years . A lot of years, a lot of years. So nasa has a lot of places across the country starting in salem, oregon moving all the way to charleston. But we have places in wyoming, in idaho, in nebraska, in illinois, in missouri, in tennessee, in kentucky. So what you need to do is go to eclipse2017. Nasa. Gov under events, and there you will find a google map with all of the Television Broadcast locations, the education outreach locations as well as all of the different people who have registered their events to share with nasa and to share it with everyone in the country about what is going on. So a lot of official nasa sites as well as lots of other ones nasa is helping to support and promote. And let me just add we have a total of, i believe, eight types of things happening in that area, phenomenal things happening. I want to ensure that you go to the website to get the specific details, and charleston. That will be eclipse central, right now thats what were calling it. But charleston will be our home base as i have been talking about, as you heard in the first show, nasa. Gov live. Charleston will be the home base. A lot of things happening. If you want to follow up with us at nasa we can give you specifics but as alex said lots of things across the country but particularly in western kentucky. Any other phone questions before i go to jason and then were going to wrap up . Chelsea on the phone. Hi, chelsea [ inaudible ] from [ inaudible ]. We hear you. I have a question for angela. So you had talked a lot about Student Research and the involvement with nasa space grant. [ inaudible ] the removal of [ inaudible ] education reduce student involvement in the future [ inaudible ] research . Thats a very interesting point that you bring up and im obviously working very hard with folks at nasa and also with our legislatures to make sure that our really valuable Education Programs do continue to exist. Obviously if that elimination happened, that would have a huge negative impact. As i said, this was a collaboration amongst many different nasa entities, the nasa mission director, nasa space grant, and theres lots of Different Centers involved as well. Thats something were really working on. I mean as we speak literally our community to save the important parts of nasa education. Things need to change a little bit, we understand that, but were working very hard to maintain those really impactful programs. Okay. Were going to take one more question on the phone and then were going to go to social media and well wrap up. I believe we have cbs news. Bill. Yeah, high. Thanks. I might have missed this earlier, wu we talked about satellites that will be observing it, the balloon campaign. Do any of you have a sense of how many obaservatories, you know, professional telescopes studying this thing while it is happening, even ballpark . Thanks. Go ahead. So the way i would answer that is start with nasa number first. We have 11 space craft that are going to observe, two of which we are doing together with our Sister Agency at noaa. We have in addition to that, you know, well over 50, you know, balloon platforms. We have three aircraft, and im really interested in your answer, david leder, but i think there are really thousands of groundbased observatories, a variety of professional grade that will look at this, of the type that you talked about, matt of, you know, telescopes that are out there that you helped disseminate but also others. David, how would you answer it . Unfortunately, our Major National facilities are located in arizona, new mexico and soon to be in hawaii. So our Major National facilities, groundbased facilities wont be able to observe it. But, you know, theres matts project. We are also funding another project where theyre going to observe it from five different sites in the path. And then i also described the incar air flight were sponsoring through the National Center for atmospheric research. So, bill, lets see if we can get you a number. If we say a whole lot, that probably wont cut it for you. This is why it is good that were doing this two months out. We can get these questions. Again, questions we cant answer and a lot of things were still confirming up, but well get those as i said eclipse2017. We will go to social. Jason, lets take a few questions before we wrap up. Indeed. Thanks, dwayne. Just a couple of things here coming in. Theres a lot of folks who are concerned about pets and animals here. So there is a friendly reminder from one of our social media participants out there who says dont forget to leave your pets in your hot cars during this. Take them out and so on so that way theres no safety issues there. But the other person here is asking us, harry on twitter, is asking how will this affect the big critters out there, things like grizzlies or moose . I could take that one. Angela speck, do you have an answer there . Ive never met one of those during an eclipse. Yes. So actually im up in wyoming in bear country right now. So i can certainly talk to this a little bit. I think that, you know, first of all i want to address one of those earlier comments is that, you know what, it is no different than any other day. On a normal day your pets dont try to look at the sun and therefore dont damage their eyes. So on this day theyre not going to do it either. It is not a concern letting them outside. It is all thats happened is weve blocked out the sun. It is not more dangerous. So i think that people who have pets want to think about that. Im not going to worry about my cat. But for the big beasties, you know, weve got im up here and we have things like mountain lions and bears and wolves and coyotes and a lot of them have nocturnal activities, but the nighttime comes so fast. I dont think we have good data on this so it will be really interesting to actually see what happens because remember, we go through a period of maybe half an hour where it is kind of early twilight colors and then it goes to quite dark very fast. So depending on how fast an animal reacts to it becoming dark, it may not be an issue at all. But one of the fun things is going to be that this eclipse goes right over the Teton National park and across a swath of we ohmy and theres a lot of bison, bears, other beasties, rattlesnakes, all of that sort of thing where we dont actually have much data on it. With it getting dark out there, on facebook these are jessica asking here, is it going get dark like night out there during the eclipse . It get to be about as dark as it is about half an hour after sunset. So deep twilight is what you will experience. In the path of totality. Yes. All right. Wonderful. Twitter user brandon is asking, what are the differences and similarities between the Solar Eclipse coming up in 2017 and the Solar Eclipse of 1979 for those who were around to experience it . Angela on the phone, do you have nany opinion there . Okay. So in terms of the way that this is going to affect the country, it is huge. I would have been in like second grade in 1979 and i certainly wasnt under the path of totality, but if we just look at where the path went, not only a small corner of the u. S. This one goes all the way from coast to coast. It is very accessible to people all over the country. So we have lots of opportunities. All right. Linda on the phone. I will get to you. No, actually i think angela answered that one pretty well. I think it is the coasttocoast nature of it thats really spectacular, and i think people have mentioned all of these opportunities to stitch together all of the photographs and all of the images of the eclipse from coast to coast. It is a really unique experience. One more, please. All right. Last question here comes from twitter user emily who asks, when will another phenomenon like this occur . It will be in april of 2024. The path will go north to south but it will cross mexico, the United States and canada. Okay. So what im going to do here is, you know, youre hearing all of these incredible stories and it really reaches down in the soul and in the personality and the human being nature, but theres also some really personal story lines here and im going to go over and see you, matt, about how your name of your organization came about. Oh, yeah. I happened to have a 14yearold daughter who has the same name as the project and i would like her to grow up to be a nice citizen. Thats how we came about with the name. Fantastic. So were two months to the day, everyone, in all viewing here, the total Solar Eclipse across America August 21. Early in our briefing we gave a shoutout to the u. S. Postal service. They didnt know, they came out with a first of a kind stamp, and go out and get those. Theyre great collectibles. Theyve been selling here at the museum. You can get them at your local post office and online. All of this information, again, you heard a lot of web sites, but the nasa website, we will put them up again and we want to commit those to memory. Eclipse2017, everything on eclipse a to z, if it is not on there it will be there. We have two months to put it up. And for the live broadcast with the space station with the unprecedented unique advantage on space, on the ground, in balloons and everything in between. Eclipse live. Thats nasa. Gov ee climbslivcli. Can we have a round of applause for the scientists, please. So the social media, keep those questions coming in. We have a team of scientists we will be answering questions almost on a daily basis. I know the pace will pick up. There are plans to do an additional briefing to give you more details on the assets and the space station and others and we probably will have other Agencies Join us. Before we go we will do what we did last time for the folks out there, safety. Get your glasses. You heard some other options. We want to be safe, we want to be prepared. The eclipse is coming, mark the date, and remember, science never sleeps. [ applause ] a Bipartisan Group of congressional members joined current and former Administration Officials thursday for a National Security forum on capitol hill. We will have live coverage starting at 9 00 a. M. Eastern here on cspan3. This weekend on American History tv on cspan3, saturday at 6 00 p. M. Eastern, on the civil war, the disbanding of the confederate aefrm of Northern Virginia as discussed by carolyn jamney. Remember, lees terms, the terms of appomattox. Always of may 9th, Jefferson Davis remained on run. At 8 00 on lectures in history, university of notre dame history professor darryn dochuck on the east Texas Oil Boom of the mid 20th sent rip and the expansion of u. S. Oil businesses to saudi arabia and canada. A geologist frames the theory of oil saying that american oil reserves were going to really collapse by 1970, forcing the country into a difficult situation. So this kind of apocalyptic fear of america losing its oil sources is going to drive exploration abroad. And sunday at 4 00 p. M. Eastern on real america, the 1979 United Nations fill the Palestinian People do have rights. Violence breeds hatred. Retaliation brings only further retaliation. An eye for an eye is often paid at high Interest Rates in our day and age. And at 6 30, president reagans speech writer Peter Robinson and former u. S. Ambassador to germany richard burg recall reagans trip to berlin and the brandonberg bridge speech. I knew it was authentic Ronald Reagan but, you know, history, as president obama says, has a heart. Of course, we would never celebrate that famous speech if in fact the
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