Big City Living, Miscellaneous

Solar Eclipse of the Heart

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In case you live under a literal rock and never come out, yesterday there was a full solar eclipse across the United States. A solar eclipse is a celestial event in which the moon passes between the sun and the earth, and blocks the sun from view. We are in a unique position on Earth because it only happens because the sun is 400 times the size of the moon, and also 400 times further away. No other planet can enjoy this phenomenon, not  like anyone is planning to travel to Neptune any time soon (remember when we had a space program? LOL). Anyway, if you are in the path of totality, it gets dark like nighttime in the middle of the day, and it lasts approximately 2 minutes and 40 seconds. A LOT of people I know traveled long distances to see this awesome event, the first full eclipse in the USA since 1979.

I didn’t leave the state (or the city), and unfortunately, we were only able to see a partial eclipse from New York City, but it was still a pretty amazing experience. One of the best things about this eclipse, IMO, was the full-out frenzy for eclipse glasses. According to NASA, you should never look directly at the sun (duh), so you needed these “ISO 12312-2 compliant pair of these special shades!” Quote from NASA, not me. There were different vendors like Warby Parker, and certain public libraries that were giving them away for free. There were some satirical conspiracy theories about how it was all an Amazon scam to get people to buy them. Again, in case you live under a rock and haven’t seen a million photos of these on social media, they basically look like the crappy paper glasses they used to give out at 3D IMAX movies, the ones that never actually stayed on your head, before they started using the actual plastic, recyclable ones. FYI, if you have extra eclipse glasses after yesterday, you can click here and learn how to donate or recycle them!

I loved the people crowdsourcing for eclipse glasses on Facebook and Twitter. Who knew we all loved astronomy so much? Honestly I hadn’t thought much about it since my Astronomy for Dummies class, freshman year of college to satisfy my GenEd Science credits. But as Monday got closer, my social media followers and followees starting ramping up for the eclipse, and I am totally guilty of getting wrapped up in it.

When I got to the office, I immediately went to NASA’s facebook page, where I heard they would be live broadcasting starting at 11 am. As the countdown to the first totality in Oregon went down by each second, I got more and more excited. I originally didn’t care about procuring glasses, I figured I’d just look straight at it, like an idiot, or use one of the other ingenious contraptions to see the sun’s shadow. Of course, I didn’t bother to make one of those contraptions. Once I had the NASA live feed up, I started to worry about not having the correct equipment. I walked down the hall in my office to ask around to see who had super special 3D movie glasses. THANKFULLY, a girl whose father loves science sent her 5 pairs. I made sure to have her come pick me up on her way to watch.

As the morning went on, my best friend on the west coast was sending me photos of the partial eclipse in Seattle, where she is, and of the total eclipse in Oregon, where her friend with an amazing photography hobby was. I was giddy with excitement. When I got outside, I was not disappointed. The sidewalks were filled with people with all different viewing contraptions, from cereal box pinhole viewers, to double paper plates, some colanders, a printout from the NASA website, and of course, the handy-dandy 3D movie/eclipse viewing glasses. Regulation, as per NASA.

Overall, I was incredibly impressed. It left me super jealous of my friends who traveled to see the totality, and I’m already thinking about how to get to Texas or Maine on April 8, 2024, when the next total solar eclipse is visible in North America.

My favorite part of the eclipse was possibly the social media aftermath and memes. And of course the fiasco and ridiculous memes after our Commander in Chief looked directly at it. Some of my favorite tweets:

https://twitter.com/thetylersopland/status/899701811166158848

 

https://twitter.com/lewiscurtwright/status/899703369861877762

And of course, some of my own. My memes were fire:

Other non-social media highlights of the eclipse:

  • Leaving the office for 15 minutes in the middle of the day, with an excuse no one could argue about.
  • The temperature dropped for a few minutes. Any respite from this heat, I will appreciate.
  • I got to socialize and meet other people in my office building, and strangers on the street.
  • Seeing Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart go to #1 on the iTunes chart. That’s a 2,859% increase in the U.S. and an 827% increase globally.
  • Seeing New Yorkers, in general, socializing with one another.
  • Looking at the packed streets in midtown via social media.
  • Forgetting for two short minutes that our entire country is going down the you-know-what.

Now back to our normally scheduled programming of antisocial behavior, looking down at our phones instead of up to the sky, and shielding our eyes with expensive shades instead of free paper ones from the library. Until next time in 2024!!

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