On August 21st 2017 what is being dubbed as the great American Eclipse would take
place on a path 2680 miles long that goes from Oregon on the west coast
to South Carolina on the east and will be the first total eclipse in the u.s.
to go coast-to-coast in 99 years. The width of the shadow
where the Sun will be completely blocked by the moon is
70 miles wide and will travel across the land at over 1500 miles an hour 2,400
kilometers an hour. For those on the ground the time of totality will vary from just
under two minutes in Oregon to a maximum of two minutes 44 seconds in the Shawnee
National Forest in Southern Illinois but for a few the eclipse will last for over
seven minutes. High above Tennessee two scientists will
extend the time of continuous observation by chasing the shadow of the
moon in a pair of modified WB 57 bombers. Armed with high resolution and
high-speed cameras a team from a Southwest Research Institute funded by
NASA will aim to capture the first ever images of nanoflares small explosions of
energy that frequently take place in the sun's outer layers. Because they fly at
an altitude of 50,000 feet or 15 kilometres of just over nine miles the
view from the WB-57 s will be 20 to 30 times darker than that on the ground and
almost free atmospheric disturbance. For the two scientists and their pilots the
Eclipse will appear to last for over seven minutes as they fly eastwards. Each
solar eclipse follows a different course over the earth dictated by the moon's
position and he Earth's orbit around the Sun. This in turn influences the speed of
the moon's shadow across the earth and the length of time that each eclipse can
be viewed at any point on the ground. The longest Eclipse for 12,000 years, 4000 BC
to at least 8000 AD will be on July 4 2186
and it will last for seven minutes and 32 seconds and start over the eastern
Pacific moved over northern part of South America and over the Atlantic
Ocean. However a little over 44 years ago on June the 30th 1973 the longest total
solar eclipse in a thousand years was predicted to occur with a maximum of
seven minutes and four seconds of totality over Saharan Africa. This
extraordinary astronomic event coincided with another fortunate circumstance the
world's first supersonic airliner Concorde was nearing the end of its
successful test program. In 1972 British and French scientists recognized a
special opportunity for this Eclipse the path of totality would travel at speeds
which could be matched by Concorde just above Mach 2. By flying one of the
prototype airliners South to join the part of the moon shadow, scientists
would be able to observe the Eclipse from over 70 minutes, 10 times longer
than the longest on the ground. Pierre Léna a French astronomer pitched the
idea to one of a Concorde test pilots who then suggested the possibility to
his bosses at aérospatiale, the French state-owned operator of the
prototype jet. The opportunity was warmly received as it was an opportunity to
show off the unique capabilities of the new aircraft. The mission posed some
technical challenges however, because he eclipse would appear almost directly
overhead, specialized quartz portholes had to be installed in the roof of the
plane able to withstand the extreme pressure and heat of supersonic flight.
In addition all scientific instruments had to be checked and modified to remove
any risk of short-circuit that might cause a fire in the pressurized cabin. In
February 1973 the flight was given the official go-ahead and five teams of
scientists were chosen from Britain France and America to fill Concorde cabin
with a variety of observational experiments. On the morning of June 30th
1973 the supersonic airliner took off from Gran Canaria and turned to
intercept the racing shadow of a moon over Mauritania. There they followed it
across the Sahara until they had to land at one of the few airports which had the
stopping distance that Concorde required in Chad. The mission was a success
Concorde 001 observed 74 minutes of totality, the longest ever observation of
a solar eclipse from Earth. This record still stands today and is unlikely to be
broken anytime soon if ever this is because currently there are no aircraft
that can fly fast enough for long enough. Even though there are military jets that
can fly faster they don't have the long-distance endurance of Concorde at
supersonic speed and they don't have the room for the equipment. In 1999 three Concordes,
one French and two British flew filled with tourists instead of scientists and
chased the moons shadow for a short period of time during an eclipse over
Europe. However further Concorde Eclipse tours were canceled after the crash of
Concorde flight 4590 from Paris in July 2000. The original
modified Concorde can still be seen in its special livery of the Air and Space
Museum the Le Bourget , north of Paris in France. Today solar research is done
mostly by dedicated space satellites like Soho for Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory which creates its own artificial Eclipse with the LASCO or large
Angle and Spectrometric Cronograph Instrument making airborne observations
much less significant than in the days of Concorde flight of 1973 but it's
legacy will live on in the flight of NASA's twin WB 57 s later this month.
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