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1:03

As you know by now, as

1:05

probably everyone knows by now this

1:07

coming Monday, April eighth, millions of

1:09

people in North America are going

1:11

to experience a solar Eclipse. At

1:14

the first instance when they're more moves

1:16

in front of this fantasy, this little

1:19

little tiny black spot on the sun

1:21

and the crescent starts to increase. This

1:24

is astronomer and eclipse chaser Sharia A

1:26

Ball. and during that time

1:28

the temperature starts to drop and

1:30

the you feel the the surrounding

1:33

background is getting daimler like a

1:35

huge cloud is coming and front

1:37

of the sun. No

1:39

matter where you are in North

1:42

America on Monday, you'll probably get

1:44

to see something like this: the

1:46

moon covering at least a section

1:48

of the sun. a partial solar

1:50

eclipse. But if you're in exactly

1:52

the right place this narrow path

1:54

that runs up from Mexico to

1:56

Indianapolis to Montreal, the moon is

1:58

going to line up directly. in front

2:00

of the sun. And Shadia says

2:02

this is a completely different experience.

2:05

When it happens, it's like there's

2:07

a sound of wish. When

2:15

this happens, if you're in this narrow

2:17

path, what's called the path of totality,

2:20

it almost feels like nighttime in the middle of the

2:22

day. And at just

2:24

that instant when the moon completely

2:26

blocks the sun, then you will

2:29

see these majestic rays appearing

2:31

everywhere. At

2:34

this point, you can stare directly at

2:36

a fully blotted out sun. It

2:38

just feels like magic. It feels

2:41

like out of

2:43

this world. It feels supernatural.

2:45

It's just like it hits you in

2:47

every part of your body. It's not just

2:49

visually. You just feel like something

2:51

is surrounding you, something

2:54

is taking you to a

2:56

place you've never been before. The

2:59

totality is short. It only

3:01

lasts anywhere from a few seconds to a

3:04

few minutes. And eclipses

3:06

seem to happen almost randomly all

3:08

over the place. So

3:10

Shadia has to chase them. For

3:14

almost 30 years, Shadia and her team have

3:16

been hunting eclipses all over the world, wherever

3:18

they can find them. We've been to

3:20

Mongolia. We've been to Antarctica. We've been

3:23

to Libya. We've been to the Dakota,

3:25

France, Poland, Asia, Vietnam, the Arctic, Northern

3:27

Norway, the Shadia

4:00

first got interested in eclipses as a way

4:02

to study a particular part of the Sun,

4:05

the corona. The corona is the atmosphere

4:08

of the Sun. And it's

4:10

actually a very, very hot atmosphere,

4:12

like over a million degrees. At

4:15

this temperature, the super hot gas that makes

4:18

up the Sun gets even hotter, so

4:20

hot that it actually breaks down. It's

4:22

like when you put a pot of water

4:25

on the stove and you boil it, it

4:27

evaporates, and then you have vapor. Well here

4:30

in the corona, you're not

4:32

just producing vapor, you're producing

4:34

individual particles called

4:36

free electrons. So sometimes

4:39

it's streaming away happily, and then

4:41

sometimes you have what

4:43

we call a storm or an explosion at

4:45

the Sun. Solar

4:50

storms send tons of electromagnetic radiation

4:52

streaming away from the Sun. And

4:55

this radiation often ends up hitting Earth. Sometimes

4:58

it can lead to beautiful phenomena like the Northern

5:00

Lights, but it can also

5:03

cause massive problems. Because

5:05

they carry very large currents,

5:07

they can short-circuit satellites. So

5:10

you basically disrupt electricity, you disrupt

5:13

telephone services, so it can be

5:15

pretty major. There was the Carrington

5:17

event in 1859. People

5:19

used the telegraph at the time, and

5:22

they noticed that the needles of

5:24

the compasses started to move erratically.

5:27

And they just couldn't use the

5:29

telegraph anymore. There was the New

5:31

York Railroad storm of 1921. Mr.

5:34

Carlton, president of the Western Union

5:36

Telegraph Company, announces that the damage done

5:39

by the Aurora Borealis on Saturday evening

5:41

may necessitate the lifting of some of

5:43

the transatlantic cables for repairs. In

5:46

1989, a solar storm knocked out the power in

5:49

Quebec. Only this morning, six

5:51

million people across Quebec woke up

5:53

to darkness and disbelief. The

5:55

entire province hit by a power failure.

6:00

solar storm took down almost an entire

6:02

fleet of satellites. And now

6:04

they either are going to or already

6:06

have re-entered Earth's atmosphere. But

6:12

despite how much damage solar storms can do

6:14

on Earth, scientists are still

6:17

struggling to predict them. And that's

6:19

because they don't understand so much about how

6:21

the corona works. Including

6:24

a really basic sounding question. Why

6:26

is the corona hot? That might

6:29

sound kind of obvious, right? Like the sun

6:31

is hot, the corona is part of the

6:33

sun, also hot. But

6:36

there's another key piece of the puzzle here. Space

6:39

is cold, and the corona is

6:41

huge. It extends five

6:43

million miles into deep freezing

6:45

space. What's weird is

6:47

it's very hot temperature compared to the

6:49

surface of the sun. You

6:51

would think the temperature would drop with distance,

6:54

but it doesn't. Charias started

6:56

trying to figure out what makes the corona

6:58

so hot by simulating it. I was doing

7:01

models of the corona, trying to

7:04

figure out what processes heat

7:06

the corona. And I

7:08

realized that the temperature was

7:10

a critical piece of information I

7:13

needed to have. The

7:15

best way to get these temperature measurements is

7:17

by taking special photos of the corona. But

7:20

the only time you can actually see the corona is

7:22

when the rest of the sun is covered up. Because

7:25

the corona is a million times fainter

7:27

than the very bright sun. Otherwise

7:30

you won't see the corona. So in

7:32

1995, Shadia went to India to

7:34

catch her first total solar eclipse.

7:37

It was 42 seconds long, but

7:40

it was probably the most spectacular one I

7:42

saw. When

7:46

the moon has totally blocked the bright

7:48

surface of the sun, you

7:51

see these structures

7:53

that look like rays,

7:55

rays upon rays, just expanding

7:58

from the sun. We

8:00

really feel the sky, these

8:02

kind of what we call streamers extending

8:05

all the way to infinity visually.

8:08

These rays upon rays were the

8:10

corona itself. The sun

8:12

was covered and Shadia was finally able

8:14

to see the halo of light that

8:16

surrounded it. But she had

8:18

to move quickly. We literally had 42 seconds,

8:21

so I couldn't spend too much time

8:23

looking around or anything. We had to

8:25

really pay attention to operating

8:28

the cameras that we had. She

8:30

took a picture. So I thought, okay,

8:32

one measurement and that's it. But

8:34

after 42 seconds, the sun started peeking

8:36

out from behind the moon. The

8:38

world filled up with light again. And

8:41

Shadia realized pretty quickly that just

8:43

one measurement from one solar eclipse

8:46

wasn't going to be enough. She needed

8:48

to start chasing eclipses all

8:50

over the world to get the data she needed. But

8:56

why do we even need an eclipse to study

8:58

this? Can't we do this artificially, like put something

9:00

up to block out most of the sun and

9:03

see the corona? Well, because it

9:05

doesn't do as good a job as a natural

9:07

eclipse. Why doesn't it do as good of a job?

9:10

It's a very small blocker, whereas the

9:12

moon is huge. So it dims the

9:15

light to the point where the sky

9:17

is like nighttime. Ah, okay.

9:19

So if I were to say, let's say I

9:21

go outside and I want to study the corona.

9:23

So I hold up a quarter in front of

9:25

the sun and I can block the

9:27

sun and maybe just see the corona. But

9:30

because it's so close to my eye, everything

9:32

will be filled up with sunlight. Yes. So

9:35

within eclipse, you get everything. You get the

9:37

very intricate structures very, very

9:40

close to the sun and you get

9:42

everything that's streaming away as you look further

9:44

away. So you see this continuous

9:47

transition from the surface outwards that

9:49

you don't get with any other

9:51

instruments at the moment. When

9:54

you are actually looking at the eclipse, what is

9:56

the instrument you're using? Our

9:59

optical system. are like very

10:01

small telescopes. But the key element

10:03

is something we call a spectrometer, which

10:05

is like a prism when you let

10:08

the light go through a prism and

10:10

it splits the colors. And so we

10:12

capture these different colors. And

10:14

each color corresponds to a different

10:16

temperature in the corona. So

10:19

is what you're doing, is it fair to say

10:21

you're creating like a temperature map of the sun

10:23

or of the corona? Of the corona, yes, exactly.

10:26

And that map is gonna help make

10:28

these models of how the corona works

10:30

more accurate? Yes, exactly. Are

10:32

we close at all to being able to use

10:35

some of these models to be like, okay, this

10:38

is when this will happen, we gotta prepare the

10:40

satellites? Not yet. Okay.

10:43

We have some clues, we know what's causing

10:45

them, but we can't predict when

10:47

they will happen. And that's one

10:50

of the things we're trying to gather some

10:53

more information from our eclipse observations.

11:01

Are we any closer than we were 30 years ago? Yes, yeah,

11:04

but we still don't have

11:06

a reliable answer. How

11:11

close are we to predicting? Are these measurements helping

11:13

these predictions? Yes, but like any scientific

11:16

research, you

11:18

discover something and then you discover

11:21

that there's a lot more to discover. So

11:24

that isn't something where

11:26

you say full stop, I've

11:29

finished, just keeps

11:31

on going. This is

11:33

the beauty of scientific research is you'll never

11:35

do. This

11:41

Monday, Shadi is heading out to record her 20th

11:43

eclipse. But

11:45

for all her technical equipment and expertise and

11:48

experience, she still has to deal

11:50

with her biggest nemesis, clouds.

11:55

This episode of unexplainable is supported by bombs so

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15:26

obstacle in

15:36

eclipse observations or chasing eclipses?

15:39

The weather. We

15:43

lost 40% of our observations

15:46

to clouds. Wow, 40%. So

15:51

out of, you said that out of how many eclipses? 20,

15:54

for example, this would be my 20th. We

15:57

lost 40%. We

15:59

lost... eight. Yeah, that sounds

16:01

extremely, I don't know. I

16:03

imagine that's got to be really disappointing. Well,

16:05

it's heartbreaking. Yes. Because

16:08

so many times what happens

16:10

during just a little

16:12

bit before totality, the temperature

16:14

drops and you have atmospheric

16:17

conditions that happen suddenly.

16:19

So once in South Africa, it

16:23

was perfectly crystal clear skies and

16:25

the cloud just formed smack in

16:28

front of the sun. Oh my god. Just

16:30

before totality. It's almost like you, you

16:32

put it on. Here

16:34

was a cloud. It just decided to be

16:37

right in front of the sun and then

16:39

it dispersed the moment the eclipse was over. So

16:42

you're set up, you have your equipment and

16:44

then a cloud shows up and then you're

16:46

just done. Like you can't do anything?

16:49

Yeah, you lost everything. You have no data.

16:51

And another time we were in Kenya, we

16:53

had a sandstorm just 15 minutes before

16:56

the eclipse. We were close

16:58

to a lake and basically

17:00

the wind pattern shifted. And

17:03

then all of a sudden we were looking towards

17:05

the sun and a colleague of mine turned around

17:07

and he said, Oh, S.H.

17:11

I said, what's the matter? We looked

17:13

back and this huge cloud

17:15

was coming barely towards us. What

17:19

did you do? We covered the equipment. We had

17:21

to. It was very,

17:24

very fast and we were

17:26

totally crowded out. I

17:32

just, it just seems like there

17:34

must be a better way to

17:37

do this. Well, there are ways. Recently

17:40

we were in Antarctica and unfortunately

17:42

we were clouded out. It was

17:44

really heartbreaking because the sky was

17:46

crystal clear the day before and

17:49

crystal clear two hours after totality.

17:52

Wow. So one of my colleagues,

17:54

he just came up with the idea and say,

17:56

why don't we fly a kite? it's

18:00

not just any type of kite. It's

18:02

quite large. It has a wingspan of

18:04

about 6.5 meters. So

18:07

we attached a spectrometer to it.

18:10

The idea is that if it's cloudy with a kite,

18:12

you can go up to 4,000-5,000 meters

18:16

and you can get above the cloud. So

18:19

we tried last year in Australia

18:21

with a kite. What was it

18:23

like testing something like this? Were you nervous? Yes,

18:26

we were very nervous, but it was

18:28

the most exhilarating experience. It

18:31

was like watching the Sputnik. And

18:34

the other option we're also trying

18:36

this year is NASA has

18:39

a research aircraft called the

18:41

WB-57. Now that airplane flies

18:44

up to 60,000 feet where

18:46

there are no clouds. And

18:48

that airplane, is it flying

18:50

along the path of totality? Yes,

18:53

exactly. So it's the engineers

18:55

and the pilots of this NASA project,

18:57

they can follow the path of totality.

19:03

How many more eclipses do you think it's going to

19:05

take before you have an answer? I don't

19:07

know. I

19:10

honestly don't know. I

19:12

mean, the thing is,

19:14

there's nobody else in this world who's

19:16

doing what we're doing. In

19:19

research, you discover and

19:21

then you have new questions. So

19:24

maybe you find an answer to one question,

19:26

but then you raise 10 more. So

19:29

it's a continuous process and this is

19:31

how science advances. So

19:33

to say that we

19:36

will stop learning, no, we'll

19:38

keep on learning. So you're just

19:40

going to keep chasing eclipses for the rest of

19:42

your career? Yeah, eclipses until I can't

19:44

chase them anymore. Somebody else

19:46

has to do it. This

19:58

episode was produced by me. Manning-Wint. We

20:00

had editing from Jorge Just with help

20:02

from Brian Resnick and Noam Hasn't Found,

20:04

sound design and mixing from Christian

20:06

Ayala, scoring from Noam, and fact-checking

20:09

from Melissa Hirsch. Meredith

20:11

Hoddnaught runs the show and Bird Pinkerton

20:13

wince as a platypus injected her with

20:15

the antidote. She looked

20:17

around and saw blinking lights and whirring

20:19

machinery entangled in tree roots. She

20:22

turned around and asked, where am I?

20:29

If you have thoughts about the show, send us

20:31

an email. We're at unexplainable at vox.com and we'd

20:34

love to hear your thoughts, your criticisms, and

20:36

any suggestions. And if you can,

20:38

please leave us a review or rating wherever you

20:40

listen. It really helps us find new listeners. This

20:43

podcast and all of Vox is free, in

20:45

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20:50

to give today. Unexplainable

20:52

is part of the Vox Media podcast network

20:54

and will be right here next Wednesday. And

20:57

last thing before we go, just to give you

20:59

a little preview for Monday, here's

21:01

a friend of the show

21:03

experiencing totality at the last

21:05

North American Eclipse in 2017.

21:07

Whoa, look over there, look over

21:09

there. Whoa. Oh

21:12

my God. Wait, you

21:15

gotta readjust this. Oh

21:24

my God. Oh

21:29

my God.