This Week with Dr. Angela Speck and Eclipse ’17

A day is approaching where the sky will darken, birds will stop singing and our shadows will look different. It isn’t the End of Days, but the two minutes and 37 seconds of totality of the 2017 Total Eclipse of the Sun.

University of Missouri astrophysicist Dr. Angela Speck is anxiously awaiting the big event. As our guest for This Week,” she gets us ready and puts the rarity in perspective.

Click to watch the video, or here is a transcript of our conversation:

DR. ANGELA SPECK – So last time there was a solar eclipse a total solar eclipse in Missouri was 1869 and to see that you had to be up in Hannibal that area the last one over Columbia was 1442.

JOEY PARKER – Wow.

DR. ANGELA SPECK – Yeah.

JOEY PARKER – This is a pretty big event.

DR. ANGELA SPECK – This is a big event.

JOEY PARKER – And this again everyone is talking about going to Nashville but Columbia is not going to be a bad place at all.

DR. ANGELA SPECK – Right so there I mean the path actually extends all the way from

Oregon to South Carolina were right in the middle the longest duration is actually just to the east of us at the border of Illinois and Kentucky they get two minutes and forty one seconds and we get two minutes and thirty seven.

JOEY PARKER – In case we have some young people watching the sun the moon the Earth.

DR. ANGELA SPECK – That’s right what happens is we have the moon comes in between us and the sun and that actually kind of happens every month if you think about the moon going around normally it isn’t exactly in line so you have the moon kind of off set and twice a year it gets exactly in between so twice a year you get an eclipse somewhere on the planet but the shadow is small and so you have to be in exactly the right spot to see it so we actually had an eclipse this year but you had to be in Indonesia or somewhere in the Pacific to see it.

JOEY PARKER – Right.

DR. ANGELA SPECK – Last year it was the Arctic Ocean between Norway and the North Pole.

JOEY PARKER – And what’s the rule with it being a new moon?

DR. ANGELA SPECK – It has to be a new moon in the sense that you know what we see of the sun of the moon is dependent on where it is relative to the sun so if you’re the sun and I’m the Earth and the moon is here you are lighting up this side I can’t see it and when it’s here your lighting up this side and I can only see half of it so we have this lighting up so it always has to be a new moon when it is a total eclipse of the sun and it has to be a full moon for lunar eclipse.

JOEY PARKER – We have science to back a lot of this up but there was a time we didn’t have it what was that like when an event like this would happen?

DR. ANGELA SPECK – So actually it’s not that long ago so you can imagine that it gets dark so first of all you probably wouldn’t notice if you weren’t looking at the sun and it’s hard to look at the sun you shouldn’t look at the sun until it actually gets dark and then it’s going to go from being like a twilightish darkness and you might think oh there is a storm coming since it’s a little bit darker and then suddenly its full moon darkness you can imagine how terrifying that would be even today if somebody isn’t doesn’t know about it and it happens just I can imagine crashing a car for instance if it suddenly gets dark like that. Then once it gets dark you can see the atmosphere of the sun which is always there but we just can’t see it cause the sun is just too bright and so it looks like there is this stuff coming off the sun that we never see and people freak out about it.

JOEY PARKER – Maybe its solar flares, the end of times.

DR. ANGELA SPECK – Exactly and so there is still a lot of myths about what’s going on so the things that we can see during an eclipse are always there just the sun is so bright it stops us from seeing them normally so you can see stars during the day things like that but also that gas around the sun that we get to see its actually really hot and its emitting x-rays and ultraviolet light and people are like it’s going to kills us well it doesn’t because the atmosphere gets in the way.

JOEY PARKER – Right.

DR. ANGELA SPECK – But you can imagine how there’s this sort of oh we never see that so it’s not normally there and oh it’s throwing x-rays at us that’s kind of scary so even when you know the last one was on US soil in 1979 there was kids hiding under desks and rooms had black out curtains because there was so many myths about how scary it is.

JOEY PARKER – And when you are in that path of totality that’s umbra?

DR. ANGELA SPECK – That’s right so umbra just means dark.

JOEY PARKER – Okay.

DR. ANGELA SPECK – And then if you are in the partial phase you are in the pen umbra which is the nearly dark and so it’s called the umbra and that’s the very darkest spot and if you are there you cannot see the main part of the sun at all.

JOEY PARKER – You have big plans for next August.

DR. ANGELA SPECK – We have huge plans basically I want the entire country to see this we want as many people totality as possible and even if they can’t come to Columbia or wherever we want them to see the partial phase but for Columbia, Columbia public schools is already preparing they already got the eclipse classes I want to make sure every single person here has these glasses that allow you to see the eclipse safely when it’s fully eclipsed it’s safe to look at it’s not dangerous.

JOEY PARKER – When it is fully eclipsed?

DR. ANGELA SPECK – But during the partial as the moon is moving into place it is not safe it’s going to damage your eyes so you need eclipse glasses so you know making sure we have those for everybody and then were going to have maps of town basically showing you all the places you can be there is going to be so many people that come to town were going to have multiple places where were going to have events and so there is going to be lots going on I’m hoping were going to have some art competitions and things like that maybe some band competitions to were still working on some of those there is going to be some music written, were not only working with the music department at MU but a Hollywood musician who has done music for Family Guy and things like that and he’s all excited about writing music for this and so

JOEY PARKER – WOW.

DR. ANGELA SPECK – It’s going to be cool.

JOEY PARKER – It’s going to be a scored event.

DR. ANGELA SPECK – It’s going to be a scored event.

JOEY PARKER – And for all the extraterrestrials that could be picking up our signal somewhere this would be a really great surprising time to make an appearance don’t you think?

DR. ANGELA SPECK – Absolutely like people are going to be surprised anyways so if you want to show up you can catch us by surprise very easily.

JOEY PARKER – DR. ANGELA SPECK were going to have you on again as we build up to this but thank you for coming back and talking to us about it.

DR. ANGELA SPECK – Thank you.