SCSU Students Get Up-Close Look At Solar Eclipse

(KNSI) – A group of St. Cloud State University students traveled to Indiana to take in Monday’s solar eclipse. Okay, there was work, too.

They helped to launch weather balloons into the stratosphere to log readings on pressure, relative humidity, temperature, and wind directions for NASA. Assistant Professor Rachel Humphrey says they kept at it for about a day and a half straight.

“We had those 30 hours of launches to take some baseline readings ahead of time, and then during the eclipse, we had balloons in various heights in the atmosphere. And then we continued to launch balloons for about six hours afterward.”

Humphrey says the goal was to record how the astronomical event changes weather temporarily in the upper atmosphere. Luckily, the team got a dry run during a partial eclipse last year in New Mexico.

An eclipse affects somewhere on Earth only about once every 18 months. The next total eclipse in North America will be in 2044. Minnesota’s only time in the path of totality in the 21st century will be in 2099.

It is not an exaggeration to call it a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Humphrey says the experience was a first for her and didn’t disappoint. She expected to need a telescope or other equipment to see the fine details. That wasn’t the case. It was all visible using specialized protective glasses and the naked eye.

“The sun is in a very active period, right now, of having solar flares and prominences and a bunch of other things. And so, during the eclipse we were able to see bright red spots kind of coming from the bottom and the top of the sun and it was incredible. It exceeded all of my expectations.”

She said she was lucky that weather conditions cooperated except for some high clouds. That is a far cry from Monday’s gloomy, overcast skies in central Minnesota. Here, it was hardly noticeable that there was upheaval in the heavens.

The total eclipse only lasts for about three and a half minutes. It provides an infinite list of questions for scientists, though. They had to work quickly. In addition to the weather data, many were interested in how the eclipse affects animal behavior. Devices captured an audioscape to monitor communications of various species.

Humphrey says she witnessed animals returning to roost to turn in for the night, so to speak, even though it was midday when the eclipse happened.

___