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A total solar eclipse will be visible across swaths of North America on 21 August 2017, the first of its kind since 1974: Was the eclipse calculated for the wrong year? One extremely bogus claim is that the date was miscalculated by one year because NASA failed to carry the one. NASA astrophysicist C. Alex Young says that is a popular hoax: Young, an associate director at the agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, will host a live online broadcast tracking the eclipse across the U.S. (We should note that watching the livestream on a laptop or desktop computer will not cause eye damage.) Around 10 million people, he said, reside along path to totality, with more traveling to areas where it will be visible. According to NASA: The number of people who will be able to witness the eclipse, Young said, has fueled the interest in this particular event, as well as the connectivity and access that will allow more to follow it: Are eclipses harmful to your health? Only if you look directly at the sun before or after totality without the appropriate protective glasses. An eclipse is nothing more or less than the moon passing between the sun and the earth, casting a large shadow over the earth as the moon blocks the sun's light. This allows the solar corona, which is luminous electromagnetic radiation that is always present but normally too faint to see, to be briefly visible in the form of a ghostly (sometimes green) light. It does not bring any new radiation into the planet's atmosphere, and thus cannot spoil or poison food, affect a developing fetus, or accurately foretell any impending disaster. And no, eclipses don't send expectant mothers into labor. Are eclipse glasses worthless? The National Aeronautics and Space Administration partnered with the American Astronomical Society to release a list of vendors and retail chains who are selling glasses that meet the 12312-2 international safety standard. Young told us that welder glasses can also be used, so long as they meet the same standard. Both groups have also released guides for watching the eclipse with either a pinhole camera or through optical projection (which can be done by using binoculars or a telescope, though at risk of damaging each device). Using regular sunglasses, however, would be worthless for the occasion — and even potentially harmful, said the agencies: The same is true of ordinary camera filters, old X-rays, mobile phone camera lenses, and smoked glass; viewing the eclipse through them will offer no protection to your eyes, although you can take photographs of the eclipse with a camera or a cell phone — with a proper filter attached. However, even if you ordered the proper glasses, it's important to keep in mind that not all eclipse viewing glasses are equal. On 12 August 2017, less than two weeks before the eclipse, retail giant Amazon issued a recall for certain counterfeit viewing glasses. They offered full refunds, but left people scrambling for eye safety. The move created a secondary panic when legitimate and verified eclipse viewing glasses were caught up in the recall as well: Viewers don't need to have one black side and one reflective side in order to be effective, despite what you may have heard, but special solar filters are essential to look at the event directly (until full totality) without frying your eyes. In their absence, or in the absence of an appropriately darkened welding filter (Shade 12 or above) optical projection or a homemade pinhole camera is the safest choice. Do eclipse glasses expire? NASA said that anyone who bought one of the recommended sets of glasses can use them indefinitely as long as they are not damaged: Can you watch the eclipse through your phone's selfie mode? You can view the eclipse through your phone's selfie mode so that you can watch it on your screen. That will spare your eyes, but be sure to make certain it won't burn your phone's photoreceptors; for example, Apple says iPhones and iPads are safe to point at the sun because the lens is so wide, meaning that the full force of the light the sun emits is relatively dim, but if you use a telephoto clip-on lens or something else to magnify the sun and its light, a filter is probably a good idea. Are pets in danger of eye damage if they are outside during the eclipse? While humans need to take precautions to guard their eyes, the consensus among experts is that pets are in no immediate danger. Author and veterinarian Dr. Jessica Vogelsang explained to us: Pet owners unsure of how their pet would react to the eclipse, she said, should keep them inside since if nothing else they'll avoid the chaos outside from all the partygoers. Angela Speck, a co-chair of the AAS National Solar Eclipse Task Force, had the same advice for pet owners in a video NASA released on 21 June 2017: Young added, The reality is that animals are smart enough not to look at the sun, even the partially eclipsed sun. He did note, however, evidence that other animals such as whales and dolphins have observed eclipses once they begin, before avoiding the sun once they concluded. Will the eclipse cause earthquakes and damage infrastructure? Young refuted the notion that the eclipse would be responsible for any tremors or infrastructure damage, though he anticipated traffic increases for people coming or going from eclipse-centered gatherings, as well as a possible shortage of other necessities: For those outside the path of totality or who wish to spare their retinas, the eclipse can be viewed online at multiple web sites. Do revised maps show inexplicable deviations from the eclipse's totality path? There have been no revisions to NASA's map of where the solar eclipse can be viewed, nor are there any reported irregularities or strange deviations from the path of the shadow: An interactive map can be viewed here. (As you can see, there are no strange jogs or veers.) Conspiracy theorists have also claimed that the eclipse would foreshadow the end of the world, or the appearance of Nibiru a fabricated renegade planet people have also said would destroy the Earth. Will NASA launch bacteria-filled balloons during the eclipse? Yes, kind of. More than fifty high-altitude balloons will be released across the United States for the Eclipse Ballooning Project, which is led by Montana State University's Angela Des Jardins. The balloons will live-stream the event from high altitudes: Some of the balloons will carry metal tags coated with a type of bacteria called Paenibacillus xerothermodurans, which is an especially hardy life form found in the soil outside the Kennedy Space Center in 1973 and isolated in NASA clean rooms, so that their resilience in the upper layers of the atmosphere can be tested when the balloons return to the ground. Because of the specific conditions in the stratosphere that are affected by the eclipse — low temperatures, lower oxygen levels, and high levels of ultraviolet radiation — the experiment will potentially offer inside into how bacteria might behave on Mars. Students will track the balloons using GPS tags, then and mail the tags back to NASA once they find them. (Despite rumors and speculation, the bacteria is not harmful to humans or the environment.) Are people selling tickets to view the eclipse? Yes. In some areas, observatories and event planners are offering tickets to specific viewing areas and festivals, particularly along the totality path. However, the eclipse will be above most of North America, so there is no need to buy a ticket unless you feel like paying to share the experience with like-minded strangers. Even if you do, though, most of the events appear to have sold out fairly quickly. Will a group of coal industry people be protesting the eclipse? A group of people purporting to be associated with the coal industry have put out a press release on 11 August 2017, saying that they plan to hold a protest in the western Kentucky town of Hopkinsville (which has temporarily rebranded itself as Eclipseville, or the point of greatest eclipse) in order to bring attention to how important their industry is, and how it has been mistreated by the fake news media: The story has been picked up by news organizations and blogs as legitimate, but we have found several reasons to be tremendously skeptical. For example, the press release appears to have been written with tongue lodged firmly in cheek: Secondly, there appears to be no Joseph Calvin (no matter his rank) living in Hopkinsville, and no one has responded to a voice mail message we left at the number supplied in the release. Finally, as of 2015, there are no more union coal miners working anywhere in the state of Kentucky. Do personal electronics such as cellphones present a danger due to cosmic rays, gamma rays, or cosmic gamma rays? Among rumors spreading on social media about the solar eclipse were ones that involved the putative danger posed by cell phones on the day of the event: However, the claim circulated for years prior to the eclipse and still made no scientific sense whatsoever. Does an eclipse happen only during the full moon, new moon, or doesn't it matter? According to NASA, eclipses can take place during a new moon, under certain circumstances:
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