Why You Owe It To Yourself To Witness April 8’s Total Solar Eclipse

30.03.2024 - 13:43 / forbes.com / April

If you haven’t experienced a total solar eclipse, you haven’t lived.

On Monday, April 8, an incredibly rare and spectacular experience will be on offer to hundreds of millions of people in North America.

Most will miss it, instead having a peek at a partial solar eclipse many hundreds of miles from where the action really takes place—the path of totality.

For many, a trip to the path of totality will be impossible, with work, school, family commitments or an inability to travel hampering their ambitions.

Millions of others, however, will be—and likely already have been—dissuaded from embracing April 8’s total solar eclipse because of the media’s developing obsession with traffic, safety and weather.

Yes, the traffic may be terrible before, during and after April 8’s total solar eclipse. Eclipse glasses—including free pairs—may be in short supply by then, stoking fears about safety. It might be cloudy, blocking the view. It’s April, after all. All of that might happen. How can the sight of the moon crossing the sun be worth all this fear and confusion?

It is. It so is. America needs a complete rethink.

The endless articles about the risks, inconveniences and annoyances are designed to play into your existing fears about the coming eclipse.

You’re forgetting why all those risks, inconveniences and annoyances exist—and why, in the long term, they are utterly trivial. “It’s the most awe-inspiring sight you will ever see in your life,” said Dr. Tyler Nordgren, an Ithaca, New York-based astronomer, author of Sun Moon Earth and eclipse artist at Space Art Travel Bureau, in an interview.

He’s referring to the few minutes of darkness during the total solar eclipse, during which it’s possible to remove your eclipse glasses and gaze with the naked eye at the sun’s tenuous outer atmosphere normally overwhelmed by the light from its surface. There is nothing more beautiful in nature. “That moment of totality is so brief, so fleeting, so precious—do not take your eyes off that corona for a second,” said Nordgren. “The stunning visual spectacle evokes a feeling of awe all on its own.”

Why waste this gift?

It’s inevitable that you’ll hear more about worst-case scenarios around the total solar eclipse than reasons to go experience it. That’s because most news journalists don’t understand enough about total solar eclipses to convey their rarity and brilliance. Many seem unable to dispense even basic advice about the importance of being inside the narrow path of totality.

Hence, the three trivial issues are endlessly talked about: traffic, lack of safe eclipse glasses and the probability of terrible weather.

People sit in traffic every day. Eclipse glasses are always in short supply just before an eclipse. Clouds can