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TIL: Solar Eclipse
- Authors
- Name
- Teddy Xinyuan Chen
(In Raleigh) The state will get between 80 to 84 percent totality. It will start at 1:51 p.m., peak at 3:15 p.m., and end at about 4:30 p.m.
I was in Dix Park in Raleigh and I saw the crescent shaped sun through a telescope during peak.
I was hyped about it but we were kinda disapointed because it wasn't what we imagined - I thought 84% was a pretty high number and we got to see cool visuals.
1 minutes after the peak MKBHD tweeted the totality he saw and it was so cool. I'm a little jealous of people who got to see it. What does it feel like to see the sky darken and brighten again? Do the animals actually stop doing what they were doing?
Table of Contents
It's all or nothing
The difference between 99% and 100% totality. This one was more dramatic than 2017. Totally wild to witness in person...again! #SolarEclipse2024
Even if it's 99%, it's still not what most people have in mind about a solar eclipse.
Now I understand why people drove half the country to get in the totality belt / path.
In Raleigh, around 3 PM, we could feel the sun didn't feel so hot as 15 minutes before that, and the brightness of the sky has decreased a bit.
No traffic jams, no crazy people, no chaos. Just a sunny afternoon if you don't know about the eclipse. You still can't look at the sun.
Earth and moon are special
The moon's size is the same as the sun from the earth's perspective, that's why we see the moon blocking the whole sun, not 1% more or less. Other planets in the solar system don't have this.
It's gonna be a long wait til the next one
NASA tweeted that the next one in North America will be in 2045. 2045! Wow. It's bascially 2x of current year if we subtract 2000 from the year numbers. It's hard to imagine a year like 2045.
https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2024/03/computing-the-eclipse-astronomy-in-the-wolfram-language/#patterns-of-eclipses (Wolfram Alpha has the builtin function SolarEclipse which is insane)
Eclipse glasses are a thing
The lens are so dark that you can't use it as your normal sunglasses.
They're sci-fi looking, but in the 80's. Yes, I made that number up. :)
People actually put down their phones!
https://blog.cloudflare.com/total-eclipse-internet-traffic-impacts-mexico-us-canada
Internet traffic dropped for the totality belt around the peak.
Cool stuff
The moving shadow
https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2024/04/09/the-eclipse-via-satellite/