NMSU team to use hot-air balloons to study solar effects amid eclipses
What do NASA, Roswell and NMSU have in common? No, it is not aliens. It is hot-air balloons!
A New Mexico State University group lead by professor Juie Shetye and graduate student Oana Vesa, both from the Department of Astronomy, has won a NASA sub-grant to lead the science team representing New Mexico in a nationwide scientific and outreach adventure.
The Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project, led by Montana State University, involves launching high-altitude hot-air balloons that would rise up to 100,000 feet, roughly 19 miles. For comparison, Mount Everest is 5.5 miles tall, and commercial aircraft cruise between 33,000 and 42,000 feet (about 6 to 7 miles). Nineteen miles is almost to the edge of space! These launches are scheduled to coincide with the solar eclipses of Oct. 14, 2023 and April 8, 2024. The project will measure a variety of atmospheric phenomena during the eclipses, compare them with data from previous eclipses, and broaden participation of students by immersing them in an innovative experience that mimics a NASA mission.
Eclipses occur when the sun, the moon, and the Earth align, and it occurs periodically. As we know, the Earth revolves around the sun, and the moon orbits the Earth. Solar eclipses occur when the moon comes between the sun and our Earth. During this time, the moon blocks light from the sun from reaching the Earth, casting a shadow on our planet. The darkest parts of this shadow are known as umbra, and the encompassing circular region is known as penumbra.
Because the moon’s orbit around the Earth is tilted by about half a degree, solar eclipses don’t happen every month (they can happen every 18 months). Also, the distance from the moon to the Earth varies (by about 25,000 miles), so depending on how and when the moon aligns with the Earth and the sun, we observe a total, an annular, or a partial solar eclipse. A total eclipse is when the moon completely covers the sun, an annular eclipse occurs when the moon is relatively far away and does not completely cover the sun. In an annular eclipse, a ring around the sun is always visible. A partial eclipse is when the moon only partially covers the sun, that then appears as a crescent.
As fantastic as eclipses are, they provide a unique opportunity for scientists to study the effects of the sun on the Earth. Several weather phenomena occur on Earth during the eclipses, as the reduced sunlight suddenly cools the atmosphere. In addition, total eclipses allow solar astronomers to directly observe and study the upper layers of the atmosphere of our star, a very hot and ionized thin gas. The NMSU team will use this eclipse opportunity to launch balloons that could measure some of the properties like atmospheric pressure and temperature variation, and also provide a live video of the eclipse.
The eclipse of 2023 will be visible from New Mexico, with Las Cruces in the 85% totality path. Farmington, Los Alamos, Gallup, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Roswell, Hobbs, and Carlsbad will be almost right at the center of the eclipse, but unfortunately our friends will not see anything much more spectacular than us here in Las Cruces: the eclipse will be annular, not total. The sun is so bright that even 99% totality is still too bright. Even 1% of sunlight is still a ton of light! For comparison, the full moon is about 500,000 times fainter than the sun. When it comes to eclipses, it really is all or nothing.
The 2024 eclipse will be a total eclipse! Unfortunately not visible from New Mexico, but our neighbors in Texas will have a show. The path of totality goes through San Antonio, Austin, Waco, and Dallas. Eastern New Mexico, including Roswell, will have about 80% to 90% coverage.
Fun fact: The moon is moving away from the Earth by about 2 inches per year. This means that at some point, the moon will be too far to allow for total solar eclipses: all eclipses will be annular. So grab your chance to observe one of these total solar eclipses while we can!
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Juie Shetye and Wladimir Lyra are assistant professors of astronomy at New Mexico State University. Shetye can be reached at jshetye@nmsu.edu. Lyra can be reached at wlyra@nmsu.edu or @DrRRLyrae on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: Star News: NMSU team to use hot-air balloons to study solar effects amid eclipses
