On Monday, Aug. 21, 2017 the United States will experience a total solar eclipse – the first time since 1918 – in which the moon will come directly between the sun and earth. It will last for about an hour and 40 minutes and NASA has plans to fund a number of projects during this unique period of time. One of them includes chasing the eclipse with a pair of WB-57F jet planes.
These planes will be equipped with telescopes to observe the outermost layer of sun’s atmosphere, corona, which isn’t visible in partial eclipses. Corona is where giant solar eruptions like solar flares and coronal mass eruptions take place. This project will offer an opportunity to NASA to not only develop a better understanding of this region but also to take high definition pictures.
A white light image of the solar corona during totality.
The planes will take off from Houston’s Ellington Field and will fly over Missouri, Illinois and Tennessee, according to NASA. Flying at a cruising altitude of 50,000 ft where the sky is about 20 to 30 times darker with far less turbulence, NASA aims to take 30 pictures per second.
Additionally, NASA hopes that the eclipse will also allow them to observe Mercury more closely and take thermal pictures to learn about varying temperature on its surface.
Steve Clarke, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C., said in the press release that this will be one of the best-observed eclipses to date, and they plan to take advantage of this unique opportunity to learn as much as they can about the sun and its effects on Earth.
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