Watch the Total Solar Eclipse | National Geographic
Hello everyone and welcome to this momentous day. It is the Great American Eclipse day and we're here with National Geographic and Airbnb on this live stream on Facebook, YouTube, and Periscope. My name is Cara Santa Maria and I am a science communicator. I'm here to help communicate some of the science behind what's going on. But even more interestingly, I am here with a NASA astronaut. Tell them about yourself.
Well, my name is Terry Virts. I'm a former NASA astronaut and National Geographic author. I'm so excited to be here; it's amazing! I am thrilled.
Okay, so today is Eclipse day across all of the continental United States and we have some really fun stuff going on. This is going to be my conduit to you guys at home. I'll be able to answer all of your questions, the ones you send in. I know we're gonna be a little overwhelmed with them. I'll be able to go through and see what you guys have to say, and we'll be able to read some of that stuff on air.
Now, I do want to point out that there is a big difference between a total eclipse and a partial eclipse. We are in the path of totality.
Yeah, this is amazing! We're right almost in the middle of that path of totality. As the moon goes around the Earth, it casts a shadow and the shadow is pretty small; it's only about 40-plus miles across. And when you have a total eclipse, that shadow goes right across the Earth's surface. That's where we're going to be in just a matter of minutes.
Yeah, I am thrilled! We're here in Terrebonne, Oregon, and right now we are in the phase of the eclipse between what they call first and second contact. We're actually already in a partial eclipse and we have a live feed of that. You guys can see what's going on. The moon is already covering much of the Sun there and you can even see sunspots through this live tomato. Incredible, is that?
Alright, but I do want to talk about why we're here in this beautiful location, which feels like it's the middle of nowhere. It's in the middle of nature. You can see that there's this geodesic dome behind us and this was a special prize for two very lucky Airbnb customers. So they got to spend the night in this geodesic dome and then today they got to fly with a natural photographer and with an astronomer to chase the eclipse.
So first they're in a helicopter and then they're going to be in an airplane where they get to follow the eclipse. Jealous?
Yes, so freaking jealous! Right? And you can see them here. How exciting! Oh my gosh, such excited winners! I can only imagine what it would have been like! Oh, I wish I had slept, your life, what an amazing place out in the high desert. Yeah, the stars must have been incredible.
I'm beautiful, but I gotta be honest. I stayed in a pretty dope place; it was pretty. So I'd love to check in with Jude Ida Eisler, Dr. Josiah Eisler who is the astronomer who went up in the plane with them, and Bob back to Freshie, who is the Nat Geo photographer. Let's see what they have to say.
Hey y'all, it's Dr. Josiah Eisler! I swear I'm an observational astrophysicist and a lover of the night sky. I'm so excited about what's gonna happen!
Bob back to Freshie: I'm a night sky photographer working with National Geographic and the founder of the World at Night program. So my whole life I've been involved with night sky and I've been a fan of astronomy. So it's almost like we're doing the coolest thing one could do if one were going to watch a once-in-a-lifetime solar eclipse. We're going 35,000 feet in the air to watch the eclipse!
Yeah, it's a private jet! Are you excited?
Yeah, that's the best place I think to see the coming shadow. I mean the shadow is moving much faster than our plane—almost six times faster!
Yeah, it is! There's no way we're gonna keep up with it! So all of those of you who are excited for us, we're excited too! But we're not gonna be able to go with the shadow; it will pass us very quickly. But we'll still get a very unique vantage point that we're really excited about.
Yeah, I think we get 15 to 20 seconds more totality by being up in the plane using the shadow. So it's slightly more than the ground, but the main benefit I think is just to be among the first people to see it—probably less than 10 minutes before the others on the Lincoln Beach.
I love it! I love it! Yeah, I think that's true, right? Getting to see it early is always fun! I would watch it at any time, but if I'm at 35,000 feet, I will...
Every eclipse is different, depending on the ambient environment that we are seeing; it could be with some clouds, reflection of the clouds, colors in the clouds. It could be the shadow coming in, could be people and their emotional reaction! So I'm going to include many of those as well in the opportunity we are going to have on the plane. We have guests, and probably it's their first total solar eclipse, so I'm going to capture those emotions as well as close-up of the eclipse.
As I said, you know, there's streamers coming out of the solar corona that are better visible from our vantage point here. But my main aim would be to capture this shadow coming especially when you're up in the air you see the cone of the shadow much more clearly than being on the ground. So all these together, I think it will be a very diverse total solar eclipse for me.
So the next time you see us, we'll be 35,000 feet up looking directly near the Sun with our protective glasses on. We hope wherever you are, you get a chance to watch it or experience it in some way. It'll be fun. See you soon!
Oh my gosh, I'm so, so excited! I'm really jealous! They will have bragging rights, they will absolutely have bragging rights!
Okay, so let's recap a little bit of what they mentioned. During a solar eclipse, it's really quite a simple concept: it's that the moon is in front of the Sun. We happen to be in that path—which is there's a fun word for this—it's called syzygy.
This is, gee! I always say 'syzygy' and that's when the planetary bodies align so perfectly. And most of America is actually in what they call the penumbral shadow, which is the almost umbral shadow—the large shadow that's cast out—and that happens during a partial eclipse. Most of America is in a partial eclipse, right? There's a skinny line, you said earlier, 40-plus miles across—that is the totality line where you'll be able to see the Sun or the Sun be completely blocked by the moon.
That's right! Now, these different phases require different types of protection! So maybe we should do a quick save.
They do! We'll do a demonstration. Don't do this unless you have some approved glasses on, but I'm gonna actually look at the Sun with the approved glasses, and you can see it's amazing! You can see the moon has taken a significant bite out of the Sun!
Right! I have to just point out real quick that my safety glasses are a little... Yes, I'm losing all the bragging rights here. And we should mention that they need to be ISO certified glasses. There are some fakes out there, which is a huge bummer! Why would somebody do that? These are not normal sunglasses!
Yeah, yeah, yeah! So—and also when you're in a partial eclipse it doesn't make the Sun any worse. It's not more dangerous than it is on any day, but on a normal day, you're not gonna stare at the Sun, and when there's an eclipse you're interested to see what's going on up there. That's why it's more dangerous; it's just the likelihood of you actually staring at the Sun.
Absolutely! And the closer and closer that we get to totality... So if we look at our live stream right now of the Sun, you'll see that it's a big bite has been taken out; the moon is really covering a bunch of the Sun. But as it gets closer and closer to the Sun being a sliver, it might not feel as much to your eyes, right? Like it hurts if you try to look at it; it might not feel as bad and that's when it's the most dangerous, because you won't have that natural inkling to squint!
And you should never look at the Sun. This is way too bright; it will damage your eyes! So even if it's ninety percent covered...
Exactly! Even if it's mostly covered—if it's something covered—you cannot look at it without eye protection! You want these ISO certified glasses. There are also some cool toys out there and maybe you already have them, might be too late to get them, if you'd like. I have a pair of solar-safe binoculars so I can actually look up and look directly at the Sun.
Oh my gosh! And I can see sunspots! I'm freaking out right now, you guys! I'm gonna be doing this quite a bit throughout this stream because I can't get enough of it! I can look directly at the Sun with my binoculars! Terri's doing some incredible photography right now!
That's right! But I have a specialist solar filter on the front so you do not want to look through a normal camera at the Sun because that will be even worse than looking at the Sun!
I'll be like a magnifying glass focusing those dangerous rays!
No! Absolutely not!
And if you happen to be in that narrow band of totality, once the Sun is completely blocked and the moon is covering it up, then you can take your glasses off and it'll be safe for a minute or two, however long you're in the path for. But until then, you have to have the protection.
Yeah, and look it up! Make sure you're in totality, and you'll know—I mean, it's a very specific look being in totality, but that's the time when you can actually remove your eye protection; you can look straight at the Sun because the Sun is completely blocked by the moon.
And all you can see is that faint corona!
And the truth is, if you try to look at the Sun with your protection, because these are so dark during totality, you actually won't be able to see anything!
That's the moment! It's when the Sun sets in the middle of the day! This is what I think a lot of people don't realize: in type 2 in totality, it's going to get dark!
It will be dark; it will be cooler; the temperature will drop!
Oh my gosh, I am so excited! Okay, so you have never—you know—the last solar eclipse in 1979 here in the United States and so I've never experienced it. I was born in 1983. Have you experienced it from the ground here on Earth?
I have not! This is my first one! But a little birdie told me that you have seen them from space!
So that was a really amazing opportunity when I was on the Space Station. Two years ago, there was an eclipse over the North Atlantic and as we were flying over, it was really far in the distance; it was more than a thousand miles away. But you could actually see the shadow of the moon on the Earth!
And if you look at this picture there's a solar array from the Russian Progress spaceship there! So underneath that bright white rectangle, you can see the dark spot and that is actually the moon's shadow!
And it was so amazing to be in space looking at my planet Earth in the distance and seeing the shadow from another heavenly body! It was truly a surreal moment!
Home base, can only imagine! And of course you've taken how many photos from space?
I took over three hundred thousand! How is it that you don't have a coffee table book for my enjoyment?
Well, funny you should ask! Actually, I have a book called View from Above; it's a National Geographic book! And it comes out this October! So it's a combination of some of the best—not all 300,000 pictures—but 300 of the best. And also stories from space: what it was like to be there for launch and landing, what it was like to be there during some emergencies that we had.
So it's a combination of stories and photos that kind of take a space mission and put it in book format!
So you said it comes out in October?
October 3rd! Just in time for my birthday! You know, just saying!
October 19th! And the reason it's an easy thing to remember for me: totality right where we are starts at 10:19 this morning which is my birthday!
And right now, I'm just gonna check: it is 10:42 so we're getting really really close to totality! Can you believe it?
Another 40 minutes or so!
Another 40 minutes or so! And I'm gonna be doing a countdown! I have a great app on my phone that gives me a perfect countdown to totality! So we'll be doing a nice countdown! I know that Terry's gonna try and get some good astrophotography, what do you call this? Astrophotography?
It's like solar photography! Yeah, there's probably a special name for it!
Exactly!
So he's gonna try and get some really cool photography while it happens. I think I'm just gonna appreciate it! But we will work on that countdown!
So I want to maybe take a question from the audience here! You guys at home, of course, keep sending in your questions or comments because we're gonna be able to check in with you throughout the stream! And remember, you can do that at National Geographic's Facebook page or you can do it by using the hashtag NatGeoEclipse!
And I've been using it, so you should use it too! Alright, so we have one here from Brenda Troyer Harness and she asks: what effect, if any, will the Eclipse have on Earth's tides?
Oh my gosh, that's a great question! But you know what? Here's the thing: the moon is in this fluky position anyway, right? So it's a normal day for the moon and it's a normal day for the Sun!
But there are some numbers that we should know, right?
That's true! The Earth is... Let's see if I get this right—you fact check me here—the Earth is four times larger than the moon, right? The Sun is a hundred times larger than the Earth, correct?
So the Sun is actually 400 times larger than the moon, right?
But the moon is 400 times closer, right?
Yeah, than the Sun! Which means if the Sun were 400 times farther away, but the moon is 400 times closer to the Sun, in this super fluky coincidence, the moon looks like it's the same size as the Sun and completely blocks it!
It does, for now. For now! But soon, in another 600 million years, the moon actually moves away from the Earth a few inches a year!
No, it does! A couple inches! That's amazing! So in 600 million years, it'll be so far from the Earth that we won't be able to have any more eclipses!
So it's good to watch the eclipse like, I don't know, once in a lifetime!
But really it is, in many ways, there goes a lifetime! Eclipses are quite common. There's about two a year; they're usually partial. There's one total solar eclipse—what is it about like every three or four or five years?
Every year!
Yeah, yeah, it does happen!
But the problem is, it's usually over the ocean!
Right, it's not where you are!
Right! And it's not usually in your country! So the same eclipse like this eclipse that's happening today—oh, I shouldn't say the same eclipse; that gets confusing and eclipse passing over the same GPS coordinate, right? Only happens like every 375 years!
Which means if you never move—like if you don't have the capacity to travel to see an eclipse—this is it! This really is a once-in-a-lifetime!
We do have another total solar eclipse coming to the United States in 2024, so that's just in, what is that—seven years?
A few more years! Oh my gosh, and it's gonna pass over where I grew up—in Dallas, Texas!
Cool! That's right!
I'll be in Texas!
Oh really? Oh yeah, you live in Houston!
Astronauts do have another opportunity if you're missing it today!
And also maybe we should talk a little bit about the different ways that you can look at an eclipse, because most of you watching on the stream are probably not in the US. Or if you are in the US, you're not in the path of totality! So you're seeing a partial eclipse!
It's a very special thing to be within that path of totality!
I think you were telling me earlier, one in a thousand people...
Yeah, it is. I've seen the statistics; less than one in a thousand humans ever get to see a total eclipse, so you're pretty lucky if you do! And even if you're in the path of totality, if it's cloudy you might miss it!
That's true! Some clouds in parts of the country!
Yeah, so hopefully they'll be able to enjoy it here on the stream because we have this wonderful telescope that's really powerful with a solar filter trained on it, so you can see it!
It's so crazy that you can see sunspots, but also the moon is occluding it! And something that I noticed when I talked to a lot of people who have seen total solar eclipses is that you can't really tell that it's the moon during the day!
Right, because the Sun is so bright!
Yeah! That the moon—Terry's taking some photos doing this throughout— the moon, it really looks like this dark disk, almost like a hole in the sky!
And as the moon actually covers it up, sometimes people get scared! They actually feel like the sky has ripped open and there's this hole that's coming at them! It's a very visceral experience!
I have no idea what I'm gonna do; I might cry!
I might cry; I might scream; I might be afraid! And also, did you know that animals act super weird during that time?
They do!
Yeah, they don't know what's happening! It's nighttime all of a sudden! And so I was reading up on this—dogs can sometimes get really scared. You'll hear that. Birds will roost; they'll actually go to bed for the night! Roosters will cockadoodle doo when the Sun comes back out because they're like, "What? What's happening?"
But two things that I found super fascinating: apparently, cows don't notice! They just don't seem to have a reaction!
And they found that out!
Yeah, they found this out by doing a lot of cool citizen science during the nineteen—I think there was an eclipse in like the 1930s—and scientists asked people to watch their animals and take notes and write in and tell them what happened! And cows don't seem to notice!
Chimpanzees, our closest cousins, will look up and actually see what's happened in awe—without glasses, though!
That's the problem! Protection!
That's right, we need to get the chimps!
We do! Solar glasses! We need to start a new nonprofit for that!
So crazy! Animals are gonna act strange! I think people are gonna act strange! You know, we're here in Central Oregon where there's a lot of eclipse parties going on nearby. In Madras, there's a big tent city basically happening where a lot of people are watching!
And there's probably a lot of kind of discord outside during the eclipse because when you're in close proximity to a lot of people, and you have these sort of visceral reactions, I can't imagine the interesting noises people are gonna make!
My friend, fellow astronaut Don Pettit is in Salem, which is on the west coast of Oregon, and the Oregon Science Museum is doing an event with 9,000 people, so he's going to be helping to host that!
But we were talking last night about how he's gonna film it! And he wants to film it with the noise so he can hear people's gasps and reactions!
Yes! Okay, so I just realized, Brenda, I didn't fully answer your question: what effect, if any, will the eclipse have on Earth's tides?
I would say don't quote us on this because neither! But I don't think it's going to have an effect! It's basically a visual fluke with rooms in the same position it would be in anyway!
Oh, maybe we can talk a little bit about the cycles! So we mentioned 375 years and eclipses will pass over the same spot, right?
Although there is an x-marks-the-spot place on the map; I can't remember where it is, but if you live in this one town, you actually get to experience both total...
Oh cool!
...eclipses! And so let's talk a little bit about the Saros cycle. Very cool. What is it?
Every 18 years!
Every 18 years! Yeah, the eclipse repeats itself from an orbital mechanics point of view!
And that leads to another question! I'm sure we're gonna get lots of these!
Why isn't there an eclipse every month?
Because every month the moon goes around the Earth and gets between the Earth and the Sun, but the shadow is so small!
So there's always the moon's shadow—moon shadow—is somewhere in space all the time, 24/7! But the moon's orbit is not in a perfectly aligned plane with the Earth's orbit!
So every month, the moon is near the Sun, but it's usually just a little bit off, above it or below it, and an eclipse passes just overhead!
But we do have, like we said, a couple of years! Eclipses are actually much more common than this way; they're just not common where people are!
Right! And they're especially not common where people are over and over and over again, which is why for many people, this really is a once-in-a-lifetime exploration!
And this is amazing because everybody in America, not the continental US, yes, but even Hawaii and Alaska are gonna be able to see at least a partial eclipse, which is great because it kind of brings us together!
I know! You know, sometimes, you know, whatever your politics are, whatever is going on in your life—and there are divisions and there's difficulty—but when we get to see an event like this, you know, something that really reminds you of how small we are on the planet, how we really share this planet together, and these cosmic phenomena are not concerned with us!
That's right! They have been regardless!
It really ties us together! I feel tied together with you! I feel tied together with everybody across the U.S., everybody across the world who's watching this stream right now, the animals, all of nature around us! We all get to experience this together!
Yeah, it's really amazing! And you know, the last few months, there have been a lot of issues going on, and this is something that we can all share, and it can be a positive thing!
The space station is like that: when I was in space, I was with Russian cosmonauts, an Italian, and Americans, and we got along great, and we became great friends still to this day, even though things were happening on Earth!
You can use these things to kind of bring you together, and I think that may be the best thing—the physics are interesting, the experience is interesting, but hopefully, you know, bringing folks together will be the most important thing that happens!
Absolutely! And people are getting together all over the country right now to celebrate! We actually have a photo here of some National Geographic staff in Tennessee who are getting ready—oh look at their t-shirts! I love it!
We're getting ready for the eclipse, and of course, we are on the early end of this; we are in Oregon, and the path of totality is moving west to east, so in many ways we're some of the first people who get to experience this!
We are very lucky! And my friend and on the TV in Baltimore, Fox 45, the meteorologists sent me the map, and so on the west coast, it's great, and in Tennessee, it's great weather!
But in the middle of the country, there may be some clouds, and in South Carolina, there may be some—
It'll still get dark out, but you won't be able to necessarily see the moon covering up the Sun!
And that's when I say luckily, in 2024, again!
But okay, I want to take another question! I think so! Let's—we've answered this one! See what else we've got!
Okay, we've got one here from Kathy Evelyn, and she says—oh, we mentioned this, but I think we really should reheat this—would it be safe to point my phone camera at the eclipse and watch it on my screen? It seems like it would be a good hack, right?
Well, I don't have to look directly at it if I drag it on my screen, but if you're looking at a computer screen, that's safe. But if your eyes are pointed in the direction of the Sun, that might not be good, and it might not be good to keep your phone pointed at the Sun for a long period of time!
You can take pictures of the Sun; that's fine! But if you just leave it—
Right! But if you're taking a video for a long period of time, that might fry your electronics or melt the camera, especially if you have, you know, a telescope or a zoom lens like this or even binoculars!
Again, I gotta point out, these are solar safe! I don't know if you can see that, but these are solar safe binoculars!
You can't, it's too bright! Which means that they have this super dark lens over the orange that's cutting out all the radiation that could be damaging to our eyes!
And I think another point that we should mention: what you don't want to do if you've got a solar filter and you're really excited to be able to use that solar filter, you don't put it between your eye and the lens that's closed!
So you have to put it between the lens farthest away from you because this lens is magnifying the sun's rays!
That's right! And it could tear a hole right in your filter if you put it close to your eye, or it could let some of this harmful UV rays in!
Yep! So the truth is, all of these, that the telescope that you see that's pointing at the Sun right now, let's look at that picture again because it just blows my mind every time that—hello!
Oh my gosh, that's the Sun, you guys! That's not the moon; that is the Sun! That telescope has a giant solar filter on the large part of the telescope, the big lens that's towards the end, and that's what's protecting us!
And Terry's camera that he's taking photos with right now has a big solar filter on the other side of the camera!
Try to the front end!
Yeah! So we've just got to be really, really careful not to hurt our eyes first; that's more important! And maybe not to destroy all of our fans!
Alright, I want to see if there's another—okay, here's one from Jessica Aguilar! She asks, can you turn your back to the eclipse and put a mirror in front of you like you were going to take a selfie in the mirror?
Well, a mirror would actually just reflect that. That's the way a lot of telescopes work with mirrors!
So a mirror would be dangerous if you watched a reflection, maybe in glass—that would be one thing! Or you could do a pinhole camera! This is really cool!
So let's maybe we can talk through—we don't have the supplies here, but we can talk through it! If you wanted to make a pinhole camera, it’s really, really easy, right? You need a box—a cardboard box or a cereal box is actually really good because it's right-sized!
And so what you’re gonna do is you'll take your box, yes, you need a screwdriver! Foil is helpful, and a pair of scissors, and also some white paper because I think this is the important part!
So you'll trace the bottom of the cereal box on a piece of white paper, and you'll cut out a sliver that's the same size as the bottom of the cereal box!
And you'll stuff that down inside! Also, you should empty the cereal so that—so the white paper is gonna be what you're looking at; you need that nice reflective surface!
But it's not a mirror—it’s just reflective!
Then you're gonna cut two holes in either side of the top of the cereal box. You'll cover one of those holes with foil, but you leave the other one open! The other one is your viewfinder; you look through it!
The one that you cover with foil, that's when a screwdriver or pinhole—hence pinhole camera—poke a small hole in it!
Poke that hole! That's gonna collect the sunlight! It’s going to actually reflect the image of the eclipse down on the white paper below! And you can see it!
Right! Looking through that viewfinder! So what you’ll see is what we're seeing here through the telescope, which is a true image! You’ll see a perfect reflection of that in your pinhole camera!
So worry not! If you do not have eclipse glasses, you still get to experience it! Team Moon is winning right now!
Team Moon is! Yeah, Team Moon is winning!
Totality is getting closer and closer to where we are! Right now, I’m just gonna open up my app, so first contact started at 9:06—that's Pacific time, right here in Oregon! It started at 9:06, it's currently 9:56, so we have been—first contact?
Maybe we should explain that because we use those terms a lot—first and fourth contact, that's right! These are important kind of astronomy terms that everybody uses!
That's right, so if you were looking at the Sun with your approved sunglasses and the moon is out there, when the moon first touches the edge of the Sun, that's called first contact!
Then the moon moves across! Right now, if you see if you're looking at the feed, the moon is kind of taking a bite out of the Sun!
And when the complete moon covers up the Sun entirely, that's called second contact!
So that's really the beginning of totality!
They’re in contact!
That's right! And then as it moves across the Sun, once totality ends, that's called third contact!
And that's only about a minute and a half later! Here where we are, some places it'll be seconds for the longest in America—it will be just over two minutes!
That's third contact and then the moon will move away! The team's Sun will start to be winning again!
Yep! And when the moon finally moves away from the side of the Sun, that's called the fourth—I think you said fourth quarter!
That's right!
And so we're—we're in between first and second!
Correct!
Right now, and it's during first between first and second and between third and fourth contact where you have to use that ISO-approved solar protection for your eyes.
In between second and third, which is totality, if you're lucky enough to be in the path of totality, that's when you can actually remove your eclipse glasses and marvel at what is happening above!
And the truth is, a lot of times when we think about the eclipse and we see images of the eclipse, these are images that are taken through telescopes or taken through zoom cameras. And we're really looking at the sun and the moon with no context!
But part of the joy and the awe of an eclipse is actually not looking at the Sun, but looking around you!
It's going to be dark as night!
Right! It's going to be cold, and the color, apparently, of the sky, of the ground, of your skin, is a color that's almost indescribable!
Because this is a type of "night" that we've never seen! It's not normal night, right? That's what I'm most excited about—to see what the color is here in Oregon.
There is a forest fire nearby here, so there's a little bit of dust in the air—it’s still a beautiful day! So I think that dust is gonna make the colors really maybe orange—I don't know; we'll see!
I'm excited to see that! Absolutely! So guys, I'm really excited because we are able to get on the line right now with Andrew Fazekas! He is in Myrtle Beach!
So totality is not as nice for him there in Myrtle Beach, but he is a Nat Geo journalist who writes about this stuff all the time and he's gonna be able to share some interesting stuff with us!
Hey Andrew, can you hear us?
You bet I can! Yeah, happy eclipse day! How you doing buddy?
Oh, very good! Very good! I'm actually on the beach! I’m actually south of Myrtle Beach now! I'm in the Isle of Palm! I made the trek down here—it's about an hour and a half drive south, and just very close to Charleston and right in the path of totality!
And what I'm in the middle of, like, thousands of people! I can't believe it! It's like—and they just keep coming onto the beach! I'm like, "I'm really stoked!" because you can feel the energy around here!
Amazing! That's incredible! So how is the cloud cover looking? Do you think you're gonna have a clear shot?
It's not gonna be clear, that's for sure! I can tell you that. There's a lot of cloud; there's a high level of high clouds! We're hoping for, like, this microclimate effect along the coast here, and we can't see—I can't see the sun through this high deck of clouds! So I can say the way it is—we should be able to see the Sun and definitely darken! I mean, there's no question about that!
Absolutely! So Andrew, I wanted to ask you about an incredible opportunity that individual eclipse viewers have. You know, a lot of us were lucky enough to get our hands on a pair of eclipse glasses that we can use to view it, but you know, once the eclipse is over, what do you do with those things?
Well, that's right! So some people are thinking, "Well, I might keep my glasses for the next eclipse!" But that's in seven years, in 2024!
And the polymer that are used in the solar eclipse glasses aren't really able to last that long, okay? And so there are about two to three years lifetime! So if you’re planning on using them... anyway, it's just not gonna work!
They're very inexpensive suits that you can always go out and buy that for the next month!
So what's a suggestion that astronomers Without Borders—this amazing nonprofit—which by the way, this full disclosure, I'm also involved in because I love this this idea of why not instead of wasting your glasses, donate them to schools in Asia and South America that will experience their own totality, full eclipse in 2019!
And so this is a great way that folks can recycle their glasses and have other people on the other side of the world enjoy this amazing moment that we're all going to experience today.
That is such an incredible opportunity! You know, I have some paper glasses; I have these really cool eclipse shades that I'm rocking right now! And I would love to be able to contribute to the education of some school children in parts of the world where maybe it's not so easy to get their hands on these, so you said astronomers Without Borders, that’s who we can donate our glasses to?
Exactly! So astronomers without borders dot org online—you can go and visit them! They're going to be announcing very soon where and when to do the hold onto your glasses just for a little bit!
So they're just hold on to it and we'll be sending out instructions on where you can send your glasses into! And we'll have corporate partners that will help us gather them from across the country, and we're hoping to just send them on mass somewhere else so they can get reused with love!
It's going to be an awesome opportunity to inspire youngsters into STEM, right? I mean, that the eclipse is an amazing inspiration that'll spark a whole generation potentially of engineers, scientists, astronauts, right?
Absolutely! And guys, for a lot of you, it's the first day back at school! So what a great thing to do during your first day back!
Hey Andrew, I got one more question I want to ask you before we go. You write for National Geographic and I read your writing all the time; it teaches me so much about astronomical phenomena!
I would love to know what was your favorite thing that you learned and then wrote about when you were preparing for the eclipse!
For me, it's the firsthand stories of animal behavior! It is absolutely incredible how nature responds to an eclipse—a totality particularly that only lasts our precious few minutes! Animals do respond; everything from whales to dolphins to small insects, ants, and even spiders—some spiders destroy their webs during those precious few moments!
Exactly! Yeah, yeah! So there's a lot of things! And there's actually a cool app out there called Life Responds; it's through an AI naturalist expert—the California Academy of Sciences—and they, if you download this free app, they're collecting your stories from across the country of what you're seeing in the wildlife around you—you know, could be ants or it could be birds; whatever you're seeing!
And this will be used by scientists, by behavioral ecologists, to understand how wildlife really responds!
That's incredible! Guys, you should contribute your knowledge! If your dog is freaking out, let them know!
Andrew, thank you so much for checking in with us!
You bet! And I wish everyone clear skies and happy eclipsing to you as well!
Well, guys, if you are just joining us on the live feed, I'm Cara Santa Maria here with astronaut, former astronaut Terry Virts. This is kind of my most special, happiest day of my life!
And we're here in Terrebonne, Oregon, viewing totality where we're getting closer and closer to totality! We're in a partial eclipse right now! We are here with National Geographic and Airbnb! We're live on Facebook, on Periscope, and on YouTube, and we are taking your questions and comments!
You just can reach out through the National Geographic Facebook page or on Twitter using the hashtag NatGeoEclipse! It is 10:06 a.m. Pacific Time—reality!
Yeah! In 13 minutes, right?
Can you think of any other cool eclipse things that you learned when you’re studying up?
Well, I would say if you're on the west coast of America right now, you're in a partial eclipse!
Yeah! So it's here! And—but don't do this without a pair of these! You have some approved glasses! You can actually see the Sun! It's amazing; it's like it's not normal!
I'm gonna look up with my approved binoculars!
Right! And that, too—oh my gosh! It looks like a crescent moon, but it looks like, about, right? The Sun looks like the moon right now! A little bit cold!
I think I'm gonna be participating!
The darkness has gotten a little bit darker! It's kind of gray!
I actually noticed that too—the camera guys here have had to change their iris because even on the telescope, you notice that it was getting darker and darker, and they have to open up that iris a little bit!
Right? That's crazy! That's really cool! How do people send us their questions?
So they can send us their questions at National Geographic's Facebook page, okay?
And they can also send us questions on Twitter using the hashtag Nat Geo eclipse!
Okay! Yeah! So we’ve got so many cool ones! Okay, I've got one here from Charlotte Teague! Charlotte, I hope I'm pronouncing your name right! And Charlotte asks: When was the last time that this happened?
Charlotte, that's a more complicated question than you might know! I think the easiest answer to that question is that the last time that a solar eclipse that had totality—a total solar eclipse—happened in the continental United States was in 1979!
That's right!
And so before you were born! And for many of us watching today, that was before we were born and even for many people who were born then who didn't get a chance to see it—yeah, right!
This is their first opportunity, which is incredible! It is!
This is my first time ever seeing it, and there's millions or tens of millions of people this will be the first time ever, and maybe only time ever to experience it!
In 1979, there were no live streams, right?
So for a lot of people, this is the first time that even if they're not in totality, they've been able to tune in with us and experience this once-in-a-lifetime event!
I've heard this is gonna be the most photographed event in human history, so we'll see if that's true or not! But everybody seems to be talking about it!
It's true! We were talking this morning about, you know, is this gonna be the biggest astronomical event? Is this gonna be the most photographed event at all? And I was like, "No!" But the Mars rover landing, it was awesome!
And he was like, "Kara, we're nerds!"
So even if you're not interested in science and have no idea, you can't miss this! If you're in the path of totality and you're awake, you're going to notice that the Sun disappeared for a few minutes!
Absolutely! And the truth of the matter is, we can get really heady with the science, and I think we will after totality!
We're getting so close because so I don't want to start a crazy conversation, but after reality, I'd love to talk a little bit about general relativity!
I'd love to talk about Einstein and about some of the incredible predictions that were actually proven by being able to observe a total solar eclipse!
But there’s a big spectrum—if you’re viewing it—a total solar eclipse, you can really appreciate the deep incredible telling science that’s happening!
But you can also think of it just simply; we’re here, there’s a thing in front of a thing! That's all that's happening during a total solar eclipse!
The moon is here; the sun is there! The moon is blocking the sun! They happen to align in such a way that to our own eyes they look like they're the same size!
It's a shadow! It's just a big shadow! And the central part of the shadow is called the umbra!
We are slowly going to be within that umbra! Right now we are in the penumbra, which is the shadow that's around it.
Whereas if the U.S. is going to be, you can hear people squealing in the back—probably didn't pick that!
Starting to get dark, and people are starting to scream, to freak out a little!
And here's the thing: if you read a lot about eclipses and the personal experiences that people have had when viewing eclipses, their response is really very... for some people, this is a religious experience!
For others, it's just a really cool sciency thing that they get to geek out about! And for yet others people, actually get scared!
You know, well imagine if you didn't know this! If you couldn't predict that it was coming hundreds of years ago, or thousands of years ago, you would have no idea!
People made up mythology to explain dragons eating the Sun and that kind of thing! And so unless you know it's coming, it could really be frightening!
And for some people, even knowing it's coming, it's—it's you—you get that cognitive dissonance!
We know it's coming, right? But I don't think we really are prepared! I think anybody can be truly prepared!
I am shivering! It is getting pretty cold! We are getting really, really close! It's 10:11 local time!
So that means that we have only seven minutes—eight minutes—seven and a half until totality coming up!
And I don't know, I mean, I know what to expect in my mind, but emotionally I'm not sure how prepared I'm gonna be for this! I may cry!
I just have to warn you, and I won't be able to touch up my makeup! So you may have a raccoon host during the rest of the live stream, which is fine!
That's fine, right? It's okay!
Okay, so we've got a Twitter photo here, and this is a nice panoramic that some people took while they were hanging out!
Oh, Michael! It's so stunning! And of course, the sun is still high in the sky there, but soon it will be completely darkened, right, by the eclipse, which is just incredible!
Can we check in on the live stream again, you guys? Because I want to see how close we really are! Is that—well, that's stunning!
That totality is already happening over the Pacific Ocean! And it’s racing at us at 1,700 miles an hour!
And of course, it's 10:12 a.m. where we are here! And I want to just make sure—it's 10:11 according to my iPhone and that's where my solar timer is, so it's 10:11 right here!
I'm getting texts from friends! And that means that we are, you know, getting close to the countdown! That second contact is at 10:19 and 44 seconds, if we're going to be... because it's my birthday!
Everybody in America now knows when my birthday is!
It's just turned to 10:12, so guys, we're getting really close! And what I'd like to do is as soon as totality is about to hit, I'm gonna do a little countdown!
I'm probably gonna stand up from my chair, and I'm gonna just look up in awe!
I know that Terry, you're gonna try and get some really beautiful photographs! Let's talk about some of the things we might see during totality!
Well, the first thing you don't want to look really until it's actually totality because even at 99% covered, the Sun can still be dangerous!
So don't actually stare at it until it's actually fully eclipsed, but in the seconds immediately before the moon covers the Sun, there are two things called the diamond ring phenomenon and Bailey's beads!
And the diamond ring is called that because it looks like a diamond ring! You'll see an orange glow around the moon, and then when there's still a little bit of Sun up—it's a really bright white thing—so it looks like a golden diamond ring with a big white diamond itself!
So it's kind of like when we’re basically starting totality, but it's just off-kilter just before the totality at the diamond ring!
And then, as the moon passes in front of the Sun—the moon is not a perfectly round object; there are craters! And so there's a bunch of divots on the moon, and as the Sun's light kind of filters and flows through those craters, it makes an uneven shape!
So if you looked at the shadow, it's almost like a hexagon or a polygon on the Earth—it's not a round thing!
And so the moon's craters create these things called Bailey's beads, and they only last for fractions of a second or maybe a second or two! So lots of millions of people will have their camera set on high speed!
Yeah, firing off their pictures trying to get that perfect Bailey's bead picture!
Oh, and here's an important point: if you are trying to do some astrophotography or some solar photography, I should say, turn off your flash!
Make sure your flash is off! Otherwise, you're gonna be really not happy with the way your flash will not light up the moon!
No, it will not!
No! Well not!
So looking for that diamond ring phenomenon, looking for those Bailey's beads—I've also heard about an incredible phenomenon that are called shadow bands!
And it doesn't always happen, but sometimes you see this banding on the ground, and scientists still don't really know what causes it!
But they look like snakes! And there have been historical reports of them being so vivid that children will try to catch them!
Right! It's just incredible!
I can see—oh, look at this stunning photo that was taken!
Oh gosh, I know it’s not—oh, my director just told me that's live!
That's not a stunning photo; that's actually us right now!
Isn't it funny? The Sun looks so strange!
It is a weird pattern! Yeah, that pattern actually reminds me of this beautiful geodesic dome that we have behind us here!
This was built for two lucky winners! And it was built by Airbnb!
And so in conjunction with NASA, National Geographic, there was a competition where two lucky winners got to spend the night in this geodesic dome and they got to do some nighttime viewing with a National Geographic photographer and an astronomer, and now they are up in an airplane, you guys!
Chasing the eclipse, trying to get in some of those first images of totality!
I can't even believe it! Can you see that it's gotten dark? It's gotten dark and cold!
It's incredible!
I know! I'm shivering a little bit! It's gotten dark and cold! And you can kind of tell, even from this wide shot, the Sun is still gleaming from behind the moon!
It's bright enough that even that sliver is giving you all of those lovely rays! But look at the telescope!
Here we are! Literally three minutes away from reality!
It is incredibly clear! I think we're at the point where I kind of want to stand up!
There come the screams! People are screaming! You can hear them in the background!
Prepare for shadow band observation!
Guys, we are getting so close that we're gonna have a countdown in just a minute!
And I'm gonna stand up and actually look, so I might be turning my back to you a little bit if you come back to see!
But oh my gosh, Terry, you have to see this! The Sun looks like a little fingernail!
That's amazing!
You guys, this is incredible! It's just incredible!
It's still bright enough that it lights up Earth where we are, but it's starting to look a little bit more like dusk, right?
No!
It's definitely... it's definitely... the Sun is setting!
But the Sun is high up in the sky, and it's gray!
To me, it looks gray! It doesn't look like normal dusk!
Like dusk is kind of orange and pink! It's not like that!
It's more of a beautiful—because you know, usually, the reason that dusk is so pink is that the Sun is setting low on the horizon with lots of atmosphere!
And atmosphere turns things kind of pinkish and oranges!
And since the Sun is high in the sky, we're seeing it through the typical atmosphere!
Right! You don’t have the refraction that you get through them!
So normally, only red light makes it through to us at dusk, but right now all the lights are so—
It's a weirdly colored dusk!
Yes, it’s spooky!
I mean, there's like a Halloween vibe going on! And I know that you guys can't see it because all of the cameras right now are trained on Terry and myself, or on the wide view, or on the telescope!
But all of the crew, everybody who is here with us for this incredible event, the Nat Geo guys, the Airbnb guys back here—all of them have their sun protection on! They're looking up!
And off in the distance, you can hear people hooting and hollering because I can see a lot of smiles too and a lot of awe and amazement!
Yeah! This is—I’m freaking out! I'm gonna be honest!
I’m kind of freaking out!
It is! It's almost there!
10:17 local time!
We are two minutes away from totality right now! And we are so close!
Look at that live stream! You can barely see the Sun peeking out from behind the moon!
It looks like a tiny little crescent, and it's like the opposite of what we would generally see!
Oh my gosh! People are howling at the moon!
We have something like a campfire scene that's happening out there!
Vocabulary word for you—some werewolves are very excited about what's happening—the moon is winning!
Terry!
Team Moon is winning right now!
Who's on Team Moon?
I think I'm joining Team Moon for sure!
Although, if it were like this all the time, there would be no life on Earth; let's be honest!
It's so dark outside!
Can you guys, this is crazy!
I know! I'm so cold!
Terry's gonna let me wear his NASA jacket!
I'm freaking out!
I'm freaking out!
Okay, this is the best day of my life officially!
I... Debbie, we need to have a countdown!
A total solar eclipse in 30 seconds!
Okay, 10:18 local time! So we are not quite to countdown, but we, my app is actually telling me, prepare for second contact!
Prepare for second contact, which means that we are super super super close! I am going to keep all of my viewing equipment really close by!
I’m looking up with my solar binoculars! It's amazing!
It's just incredible! You know what? I'm actually gonna move over to my solar glasses so that I no longer have to hold anything in my hands!
There's just a little bit of Sun left, just a little!
It's getting really dark!
My goodness, we're starting to even see totality!
Look, there’s a diamond ring happening right now!
Wow! There is a diamond ring happening!
And we're not even quite at... Nope! We're there! We're in totality!
Yeah, guys! We're there! We're in totality!
We're in the diamond ring right now!
And as that diamond ring starts to fade, fade, fade, we're here!
Here come the Bailey's beads!
Now we can look at it!
Oh my god, there it is!
Wow! You can see the stars! You can see the planets!
Oh my god, you guys! I'm actually crying!
This is the most I've ever seen in my entire life!
So you can see the Sun's corona!
Yes! That is amazing! It's massive!
From behind, and we get to experience this for a full minute and a half!
I'm just gonna soak it in!
Look at the planets you can actually see—I know, that is incredible!
This is amazing!
Wow!
Oh, Terry's letting me look at it through his zoom lens on his camera!
I'm losing my mind!
This is unbelievable!
It's dark outside!
There's a little red dot on the right side!
I wonder if that's Mars!
The light?
Yeah, it might be Bailey's beard coming through!
Yes! Around the Moon!
And here you go! I'll give you this back!
Another thing that's an incredible phenomenon is that you have a 360-degree sunset right now!
If you look all the way around you, you still see the warmth of the Sun along the horizon, right?
Normally, at sunset, there's just, you know, red and pink there!
And sunset’s just one song!
But it was like all around us!
Yeah! Is absolutely stunning!
Okay, I have all of my stuff in my chair! I'm gonna reset a little bit because I want to see if any of you have reached out and sent us your comments!
And—oh look at the beautiful geo dome right now, you guys!
It’s so pretty!
We're so lucky to be here in Central Oregon with National Geographic, with Airbnb, with that stunning geo dome behind us!
And I gotta keep my eclipse glasses close by because I’m not done watching yet quite yet!
But let's see if—yeah!
Okay, we've got the telescope view in front of us too! And I'm just gonna check and see if there's any new...
Oh! We've got some—no, we've got those photos!
No! I want to see some questions!
Oh! This is an interesting question!
Alright, we've got a question here from somebody who doesn't have a username, which is fine!
Is there a chance in the future that eclipses will be caused by other planets?
And that's a question from Kazakhstan!
Will eclipses be caused by... Oh, that's a great question!
There are eclipses that happen all the time around the solar system because many planets have moons!
The problem with planets is they're so far away from other planets that the shadow that they form is so small it would never make it to another planet!
And if they ever did, it would probably be really bad here on Earth if Jupiter were close enough to cast a shadow!
So the planets are a little too far away to completely obscure the Sun!
But there is an incredible phenomenon called the transit of Venus!
Yes!
I actually saw that! I think it was 2004, using a pinhole camera!
I took the piece of cardboard, made a little pinhole, and you can see it on a piece of paper!
Yes! You can actually see Venus transiting across the surface!
Right! Scientists use those measurements that they take during the transit to learn all sorts of things about our solar system!
But it's teeny tiny, right? It actually looks like—have you guys seen these incredible photos of the space station?
Yes, traveling across the surface of the—it looks like that!
And we had one of the favorite things I did in space was film an IMAX movie called Beautiful Planet!
And our director of photography, James Neihaus, actually came out to California, had a special camera, and took a picture of me flying in front of the Sun onboard the space station!
Like a thousand frames a second! A really specialized shot!
But that's pretty cool!
So if you were on Mars, you could get a transit of the Earth; you could see the Earth move in front of the Sun!
But that would be pretty rare, and not that common of a thing to see!
But I did read that on Mars you have solar eclipses really common because the moons are tiny!
Yeah! Those moons are really close!
They're small! And because they're so small, they can be close to Mars to stay in orbit!
And so there's a small shadow going across the surface all the time!
Yeah! So even though we won't have any solar eclipses that are caused by other planets, there are solar eclipses on other planets caused by their own moons quite often!
It is! So when we finally send people to Mars, we won't have to have special National Geographic coverage!
Oh my gosh! I love it! So much!
Oh, we've got another question here! This one is from Stacy Renee, and she asks—actually, she says: My students are wondering—hi students!—if it's cloudy out, does that affect the temperature drop?
Hashtag NatGeoEclipse!
Hmm, so it wouldn't be as severe or significant, but I still think there would be a temperature drop just because the Sun is obscured!
That's a great question! I've never... but, you know, it really depends on how heavy the cloud cover is, right?
Now, sometimes when the cloud cover is so incredibly thick, you just don't get much of the Sun, correct?
Through the clouds, it's already kind of dark outside—it's on a stormy day, and you're cold anyway!
I bet you in that case it wouldn't have much of an effect! And where we are in the high desert of Eastern Oregon, the temperature is completely dependent on the Sun!
This morning it was cold, and as the Sun came up, it warmed up! But if you're in a place like Houston, where I'm from, it doesn't matter where the Sun is! That's hot all the time!
That kind of depends on where you are and how much of your temperature depends on the Sun or not!
Yeah, we were—it was dramatic here in Central Oregon when the Sun was blocked by the moon during totality! I was freezing!
I actually got to borrow Terry's astronaut jacket!
He let me borrow it!
You can have this back now!
If you're not careful, I will walk off with that!
So yeah, Stacy, I hope that answered your question!
You know what, Terry, I'm reminded of some parallels between the total solar eclipse and some of the experiences that you've been telling me about being there during shuttle launches, right?
Yeah, that was the interesting to talk about the day turning into night, which is what we just experienced! By the way, that was—I'm still kind of on a little bit of a rush—that was amazing!
But at a shuttle launch, when I launched, both my launches were at 4 AM, which is a great time! But I highly recommend that if you ever get a chance to go into space—4:00 in the morning is so great!
Keep that 4 AM and go to space!
On my first launch, there was a thin deck of clouds! And when the shuttle engines lit up and the solid rocket boosters—the big white rockets lit up—nighttime turned into day!
And for, you know, hundreds of tens or hundreds of miles, all of a sudden, it was daytime!
And I love that people post their home movies on YouTube, and you can Google STS-130 launch, and people are screaming and cheering because nighttime turned into day!
And so here we are at the eclipse—daytime turned to night!
And people were screaming and cheering and getting goosebumps!
It's a weird parallel, but it was really set like the off!
Yeah! And right time—turn to day, and quotes, because it wasn’t from the Sun; it was from the bright rocket!
Right! Especially because we had clouds that were reflected! And it was amazing!
That's incredible! And of course this phenomenon of sort of a hole being ripped in the sky!
Yes! You know, for a lot of people—and for me too—when I was watching that eclipse, it looked like there was a hole!
It did!
With the Sun’s corona! It looked like somebody had shot a hole!
Because the moon doesn't look like the moon’s shadow!
Yes, it—you couldn't tell that that was the moon!
It was just a hole in the Sun!
And of course when the shuttle launches, it sounds like a hole being ripped in the...
The closest you could be was about three and a half, four miles away in it, so it takes, you know, ten or tens of seconds for the sound to get there because the speed of sound is about a thousand feet per second!
And but when it finally gets there, there's this ripping and this violent shaking your chest!
You could feel it! And it sounds like the sky is being ripped in half!
And just seeing the eclipse—it was a similar—I mean of different reasons, obviously—but it was a similar emotional experience!
You guys, I'm still shaking!
Alright, so I think we have an Instagram photo here of some cameras—we could pull that up! Some cameras that were set up at Jackson Hole where people were preparing to watch the eclipse!
I think we can pull that up, if not, it's not a big deal, maybe we'll be able to get to that!
Oh, there we go!
I love this, guys! I love how this event brings so many amateur astronomers, so many everyday people who are getting excited about science together in order to experience this monumental occasion!
This is something we can all enjoy and experience together! It doesn't matter if you're an amateur astronomer or a scientist or have no idea about what a moon is!
It’s something that brings us all together, which is pretty amazing!
Yeah, absolutely! Oh my goodness, here we are about to break something huge!
We are getting the first photos of our crew who is up in the plane, taking a picture of the solar eclipse!
Wow!
Yeah, over the Pacific! In order to get it before it came to us!
And it doesn't look like that looks like they're in space!
Yeah!
So you guys can see this 360 phenomena I’m talking about! We're at the horizon! You see the glow of the Sun!
But up in the sky, it’s utter blackness 40,000 feet right there in the air where they took this photo—an odd perspective!
That’s what it looks like from space!
Especially that blue band you can always see—not always—but at the right Sun lighting, you can see that blue band!
And if it were not for the airplane wing, you would tell me that was a picture from the space station, and I believe it!
That is incredible!
And what an incredible contest these two lucky winners! You guys won a contest that was sponsored by Airbnb and National Geographic!
And you can see in the background right here this beautiful geodesic dome!
It’s all lit up by the Sun, by the partial eclipse Sun! So they got to spend the night in this geodesic dome, they got to do some night viewing of the sky with a Nat Geo photographer, an astronomer, and then this morning they went up in a private plane, and they chased the eclipse!
So let's talk a little bit about that! Chasing Icarus!
Obviously, they can't catch it because how fast is the eclipse move?
It's going about 1,700 miles an hour!
Yeah, I don't think we have airplanes!
So they're in a Gulf Stream right now, so it's probably going about 500 miles an hour!
Although we were reading last night, in 1972, the Concorde, which was a supersonic passenger airplane, went twice the speed of sound, chased an eclipse across Africa, and they got over 70 minutes of totality!
And of course, NASA just right now is actually chasing it!
What kind of plane is it?
It's called a WB-57; it's an old Air Force airplane from the 1950s and 60s that NASA has repurposed for science!
You can put all different kinds of instruments that look at Earth or look at the sky, and right now they have special instruments that are looking at the telescope!
And the advantage of being in an airplane is you can fly to the east and not completely keep up with it, but spend more time in the shadow than we just had five seconds in the shadow!
We had a minute and a half of totality!
Ah, our contest winners up in the plane, I think are getting about four minutes, maybe three and a half!
They were saying only an extra 20 or 30 seconds just anywhere on the ground; yeah!
In the United States, you're gonna get—if you're in the path of totality, anywhere from a couple seconds to just over two minutes!
Right! So they got a leg up on anybody on the ground, but these NASA planes that are getting close to seven minutes, they'll get in multiple minutes!
Yeah! That's amazing!
Amazing, right?
Oh my gosh! Can I see that picture from the plane again? I would love to see—I’m dying!
That's amazing!
This is incredible!
And Terry, are you gonna post some of your photos after the stream so that we can get a look at them?
I am! I’m trying to do it now! We'll see how the Wi-Fi comes and goes for my camera!
So you're AstroTeri on Twitter, and you’re Astro underscore Teri on Instagram, right?
Great! And I need to be also tweeting and Facebooking a lot of eclipse data throughout the day!
I'm at Cara Santa Maria on Twitter and I'm at Facebook.com/sciencecara!
But of course, this amazing experience that we're doing, that we're having today, this stream that's hosted, it's going to be—or it is right now—on National Geographic's Facebook page, so reach out on National Geographic, tell us what's going on in your neck of the woods!
And you can also reach out on Twitter using the hashtag NatGeoEclipse!
We are here with National Geographic and Airbnb, and we are so lucky to be in such a beautiful part of the country experiencing the awe and wonder that is this once-in-a-lifetime event!
I've never experienced anything like that!
That was really powerful!
Spacewalks, I have been!
Yes, but this was a unique experience!
I've never experienced anything like that!
You guys, that's a quote!
Okay, that's a quote! I want to see that trending on Twitter right now—he's never experienced anything like this!
Yeah, that's true!
It's just incredible!
It's just incredible!
Alright! I’m hoping that a few more of your comments are able to come in soon!
I'm wired up with you, but of course, the Wi-Fi is not incredible out here in the middle of the high desert!
Let's see where we are!
Do we have to check in with any other of our National Geographic science writers, any of our correspondents on the ground?
Okay, so we're trying to establish some connections right now with some other folks that are on the ground so that we can chat with them!
I teed this up before, we didn't get a chance to talk about it!
Alright!
We're about to bone up a little bit on general relativity!
That's right! Yes! Some of the science!
Yeah! So one of the amazing things that we just experienced when the Sun disappeared—Team Moon was winning for a couple minutes, but I think Team Sun's back on!
Oh! Team Moon is for sure back up!
I'm just gonna put on my super cool eclipse shades one more time! That's right!
And take a look!
It's so weird because it's like the opposite!
It's like—it's like a crescent Sun!
It's like an orange!
Yes! So one of the things that we saw— you could see planets!
And back in 1919, yeah, right soon after Mr. Einstein had decided or had come up with this general theory of relativity, they wanted to test the hypothesis that gravity could bend the light of stars!
And so during an eclipse, they were able to look at a star that was really near the Sun. Normally, you can't see the star 'cause it's too bright, but during an eclipse, it blocked the Sun's light so they could see where the star was!
Only the star was a little bit not where it should have been, and that was because the gravity from the Sun was bending the light of the star!
So the star didn't actually move, but where it looked to us moved because the Sun was like a big lens out there that kind of bent the light! And then that just proved that Einstein was right and that relativity was true!
Yeah!
And so, you know, if you think about it, prior to Einstein's really groundbreaking theory, a lot of people didn't really believe at first. People thought that gravity was a force, like there's a physical force that's pulling, and we sometimes talk about it that way in a Newtonian sense to understand it at more of an elementary level.
But the truth is, as Einstein posited, gravity is actually just what happens when space-time is shifted!
Space-time!
Space-time is this fabric that's out there, they're inextricably linked, and when there are large, large objects, they physically warp the space-time around them!
So he was saying, "Guys, if the Sun goes out and we're able to see all of the stars that are right really close to the Sun, we should see some warping!"
We should! We should take their measurements during the eclipse, right?
Just a little bit different, right, than how they are at night!
But actually beyond that, things like time change, things like your mass change, and your size change too!
And, you know, I know this because when I was in space, I aged 7 milliseconds less than everybody else on Earth!
Yes!
I'm younger than I would have otherwise been!
You might have noticed!
You know!
You went back in time!
Also wait! So you're really going back in time!
But time slowed down!
Slowed down!
Right!
That's a better way to say it!
So not only did time slow down for you, you grew!
I did grow, but that wasn't from relativity!
It was from a lack of gravity!
You know, all astronauts get taller!
And I was finally—I was 6 feet tall while I was in space!
We have a tape measure on the wall!
You could, like, you know, 6 feet tall, and then within a couple hours, back on Earth, gravity was one again!
You have to feel so heavy when you first land!
You feel very heavy!
After my first flight, I was sitting there getting the Space Shuttle powered off!
It had probably been 30 minutes; finally, it was shut down!
And it was time for me to get out!
And a fellow astronaut came in, and I went to—I reached up to my helmet and was like, "Oh, be careful, this helmet weighs 500!"
But after a day or two, you're back to normal!
But the first day, you're dizzy and heavy!
So how many hours did you spend in space?
Over seven months!
Over seven months?
Yeah!
Seven months times 24—
Times, you were a math major.
I was!
But how many hours or minutes, I should say, did you spend on EVA, doing a spacewalk?
So my spacewalks were over nineteen hours!
I did three different spacewalks!
And of course, most of the photos that you—all of the photos that you took in space were taken from within the ISS!
But you took how many total?
Over 300,000!
And you can see here, your new book, View From Above!
That's right!
That includes not all 300—that's not all 300!
I'm super excited about this book!
It's a National Geographic photography book, but also with stories from space!
So it's not a memoir; it's about taking a space mission and putting it in a work format!
And between the pictures and the stories, I think it really—I tried to capture what it's like to be in space!
Yeah! Super excited!
October 3rd!
October 3rd!
Most of us don't have the pleasure, obviously—not yet, at least!—of being able to go to space!
So this is a great way to be able to share it!
Yeah! So many millions of people are super interested in space!
And I wish they could go!
And I think in the future, more people will have a chance to go!
But for now, there's only been a few hundred of us that have gone, so I'm trying to share that experience!
And of course, the statistic was until today that one in a thousand people across the world had ever experienced a total eclipse, right?
That’s—I mean, it's such a rare thing!
Everything—it's rare in the sense that it doesn't pass over our heads very often!
It's not rare in the astronomical sense!
Right!
Things line up in such a way that there's an eclipse quite often!
But usually, it's happening in the ocean!
Usually, it's happening in a place where there's not a lot of population!
Or in space!
Or in space!
So the shadow is always there somewhere!
Yeah!
24/7, but here in the United States—in the continental United States—actually, in all of the United States, everybody got to experience at the very least a partial eclipse!
And a fair amount of people were in the path of totality!
Oh my gosh!
Or in the path right now, you might be in a total eclipse right now over the middle of America!
Right, you guys!
That's insane!
And I want you to tell me about it!
Okay, so make sure that you use the hashtag NatGeoEclipse!
And there is our NatGeo eclipse! This is a live feed from our telescope right now!
Oh my gosh, okay, we've got some great, great questions that are coming in here!
Oh, okay! And here's one from Rizwan Qureshi! And Rizwan asks, when shall we expect the next full lunar eclipse in the future?
And in which part of the world?
Why would you—ask us a question!
We don't know the--let's talk about what a lunar eclipse is versus a solar eclipse!
Yeah, that's a good idea!