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On April 8 , parts of the U.S. , Canada and Mexico will be thrust into darkness as the moonlight glides perfectly in front of the sun , mark atotal solar occultation . jillion of eager spectators are n’t the only ones who are excited;NASAengineers in Virginia plan to make the most of the treasured few minutes of darkness by launching rockets directly into the occultation ’s shadow .
Besides the obvious coolheaded factor , the launches have an important science goal : to help scientists understand how the sudden drop in sunlight bear on our major planet ’s blanket of air .
A NASA illustration of the upcoming solar eclipse on April 8.
The sudden modulation from sidereal day to nighttime is get it on to make sharp drops in temperatures and eventrick animal into lease in nighttime conduct . But scientist realise little about how the brief mo of darkness act upon the boundary between Earth ’s upper and lower standard pressure , call the ionosphere , which extends between 55 to 310 miles ( 90 to 500 km ) above the satellite ' ; ’s surface .
Here , ultraviolet actinotherapy from the sun routinely pries away electrons from atoms , forming abundant electrically charged particle that puff up the upper atmosphere . It thin out upon sunset as these ion recombine into electroneutral atoms , only to be rip away again next dawn .
Related:4 ways you may help NASA examine the April 8 solar eclipse
A NASA rocket launched during the partial solar eclipse last October to study how the sudden drop in sunlight affects Earth’s upper atmosphere.
" If you think of the ionosphere as a pool with some gentle ripples on it , the eclipse is like a motorboat that suddenly rips through the water,“Aroh Barjatya , a professor of engine room and physics at Embry - Riddle Aeronautical University , said in a2023 NASA clause . " It creates a wake immediately underneath and behind it , and then the weewee level momentarily croak up as it rushes back in . "
So , by launching three rockets before , during and after the moon ’s shadow turns solar day into night on April 8 , NASA engineers hope to amass enough data to presage such disturbances , which are known to interfere with both radio receiver and orbiter communicating .
So Barjatya and his squad will plunge three rocket engine from NASA ’s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island , Virginia . Over this facility , the synodic month will block only 81.4 % of the sun ’s light , but the squad hopes to expend the temporary dimming to understand just how widespread the " wake " created by thesolar eclipseis .
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The same squad of engineersdid a alike experimentduring last October ’s partial"ring of fire " solar eclipse , when a maximum of 90 % of the sun ’s luminance was blocked by the Sun Myung Moon . issue from those launches revealed that the drop in sunlight get perturbation capable of affecting radio and satellite communicating , underscoring the need for improved capableness to predict them .
" We are passing excited to relaunch [ the rockets ] during the entire eclipse , to see if the perturbations start at the same altitude and if their magnitude and scale stay the same , " Barjatya conclude in aNASA command .
