Key events
Hereâs a little bit more about one of the science experiments Nasa is conducting during todayâs eclipse. The space agency will be firing three âsoundingâ rockets from its Wallops flight facility in Virginia, at intervals from 45 minutes before, to 45 minutes after the peak local eclipse.
The purpose is to collect data on how the sunâs sudden disappearance affects the ionosphere and creates disturbances with a potential to interfere with communications on Earth.
Theyâre the same three rockets recovered and refurbished from a similar experiment Nasa conducted during last Octoberâs annular solar eclipse.
The project is in partnership with Floridaâs Embry-Riddle aeronautical university, and researchers will monitor information from the rockets as they travel into the ionosphere, a region of Earthâs atmosphere from 55 to 310 miles above the planet.
âItâs an electrified region that reflects and refracts radio signals, and also impacts satellite communications as the signals pass through,â said Aroh Barjatya, professor of engineering physics at Embry-Riddle and director of its space and atmospheric instrumentation laboratory.
âUnderstanding the ionosphere and developing models to help us predict disturbances is crucial to making sure our increasingly communication-dependent world operates smoothly.â
You can read more about the project here.
Partial eclipse reaches Texas
A partial eclipse has reached Eagle Pass, Texas, one of the first in the country to experience the phenomenon.
Eclipse begins in Mazatlán
A partial solar eclipse is now visible in Mazatlán, Mexico, where it will reach totality in the next hour at 2:07pm ET (12:07pm local time).
Totality will last for four minutes and 17 seconds.
The US National Weather Serviceâs prediction center has issued its final forecast update before the eclipse in the country this afternoon.
Final update ahead of this afternoon’s total solar eclipse. ð
Clouds will impact the view throughout much of the totality path, but high clouds from Texas to Ohio and in parts of New England may not completely obscure the eclipse. Stay safe and enjoy! pic.twitter.com/LzKaMCjXwe
— NWS Weather Prediction Center (@NWSWPC) April 8, 2024
In the wake of previous eclipses â like one we saw in 2017 â hospitals around the US were preparing to be inundated with people arriving at their emergency departments to see if they had sustained eye damage as a result of watching the eclipse.
Doctors across the country also reported a huge volume of calls requesting information about the possible long-term effects of having stared at the eclipse.
Hereâs a simple test to find out if you damaged your eyes during the solar eclipse.
Total solar eclipse begins in middle of the Pacific
The moon lines up perfectly between the Earth and the sun in a total eclipse over the South Pacific, AP is reporting.
A partial solar eclipse is now visible in Mazatlán, on Mexicoâs Pacific coast.
Millions of people are gathering across 15 US states and in Mexico and Canada in anticipation of the total solar eclipse.
Richard Luscombe
Most of the things that animal behaviorists saw during the 2017 US total eclipse were related to circadian responses, but teams also observed a lot of anxiety-related behavior, said Adam Hartstone-Rose, professor of biological sciences at North Carolina State University, who will be leading a team of researchers and volunteer observers on Monday at the Fort Worth zoo in Texas.
Obviously the animals that are going to their bed area, they think that evening has fallen. But the anxiety one is a bit more mysterious, we donât know the cause. It could be the animals are aware of some kind of disparity going on. If it all of a sudden seems dark, my dog, who is very food motivated, would worry weâd forgotten a meal for him, so that might be going through some of these animalsâ heads.
The most likely reason is the strangest animals of all we observed in 2017 were the people, doing crazy things, and I think that probably the animals might be having a reaction to the exuberance that the people display.
Also being watched on Monday, he said, were âsome animals we think might do something interestingâ, such as the Fort Worth zooâs bonobo apes.
Along with chimpanzees, theyâre our closest relatives, and are strange, fascinating and very cool apes. When bonobos have tension in the group, they also have sexual responses to that. They alleviate tension with all sorts of sexual behavior, including homosexual behavior.
Richard Luscombe
Not every scientistâs attention will be focused on the skies during Mondayâs solar eclipse.
Animal behaviorists at several zoos across its pathway will be watching creatures great and small for their reactions to the sudden, unexpected darkness.
The research is an extension of their observations from 2017âs most recent total eclipse in the US, when usually sedentary tortoises started rutting, frantic giraffes ran around aimlessly, and siamang gibbons embarked on an abrupt and tumultuous chorus of screams and barks.
A team of researchers and volunteer observers on Monday at the Fort Worth zoo in Texas will watch many of the species they did seven years ago when the eclipse passed over Riverbanks zoo in Columbia, South Carolina, the results of which were published in a 2020 paper co-authored by Adam Hartstone-Rose for the National Library of Medicine.
As well as the amorous gopher tortoises, they recorded a male gorilla charging a glass enclosure, flamingos that clustered in an unusually tight bunch, and lorikeets that began chirping loudly and swooping en masse.
Joe Biden has urged Americans to watch the solar eclipse safely.
The US president is traveling to Wisconsin today to announce details of a new plan to ease student loan debt.
The vice-president, Kamala Harris, is expected to view the eclipse with students in Philadelphia.
What time is the solar eclipse happening?
The solar eclipse will make landfall on Mexicoâs Pacific coast at 11:07am PT.
As the moonâs shadow travels northeast, it will cross into Texas at 1:27 CT and sweep across more than a dozen US states, ending in Maine at 3:35pm ET and into Canada. The eclipse will exit continental North America from Newfoundland at 5:16pm NT.
Here are some times for the path of totality:
Dallas, Texas totality: 1:40pm to 1:44pm CDT
Idabel, Oklahoma totality: 1:45pm to 1:49pm CT
Little Rock, Arkansas totality: 1:51pm to 2:00pm CDT
Poplar Bluff, Missouri totality: 1:56pm to 2:00pm CT
Carbondale, Illinois totality: 1:59pm to 2:03pm CT
Evansville, Indiana totality: 2:02pm to 2:05pm CDT
Cleveland, Ohio totality: 3:13pm to 3:17pm ET
Erie, Pennsylvania totality: 3:16pm to 3:20pm ET
Niagara Falls, New York totality: 3:18pm to 3:22pm ET
Burlington, Vermont totality: 3:26pm to 3:29pm ET
Lancaster, New Hampshire totality: 3:27pm to 3:30pm ET
Caribou, Maine totality: 3:32pm to 3:34pm ET
