A Matter of Night and Day

Scientists and solar-rock fans get set for an eclipse

Winnipeg is jumping. Airline reservations to the frostbitten Canadian city (pop. 560,000) have been booked for months. Hotels are full up too. The cause of this midwinter madness: the last solar eclipse over the continental U.S. until 2017. On Monday, Feb. 26, the moon will slip between the earth and sun, and progressively blot out the solar disc along a so-called path of totality that begins in the Pacific Ocean west of Washington State, cuts northeast over Canada, then darts off and away toward Greenland.

Although a partial eclipse will be visible elsewhere on the continent, scientists have deemed the Winnipeg region the best place to observe total darkness. To make the most of that opportunity, the professional observers as well as thousands of amateur eclipse buffs are readying their rockets, cameras and telescopes for the solar blackout.

No stunning revelations are likely; a strong motive for trekking to Winnipeg is the sheer fun -or, as one scientist says, "the orgasmic experience" -of eclipse watching. But the scientists do follow in a distinguished tradition. It was during an eclipse in 1761 that scientists discovered the dense atmosphere of Venus; at such times the inner planet is higher in the sky, letting astronomers see it through less of the earth's atmosphere. Helium was found in the sun during an 1868 eclipse. And in 1919, British scientists measured the bending of starlight by solar gravity, thus providing dramatic proof of Einstein's general theory of relativity.

This year, from nearby Red Lake, Ont, Canadian and American agencies are launching 34 atmospheric rockets to look for other surprises. The U.S. Navy, for example, wants to learn how electrical changes in the ionosphere, some apparently connected to fluctuations in solar radiation, disrupt radio contact between ground stations and satellites. In a NASA-owned Learjet, Physicist T. Allan Clark of the University of Calgary will study the sun's eruptions, seeking links between this activity and terrestrial climate.

Backing up the scientific ranks will be 20,000 amateurs with cardboard-box viewers or aluminized Mylar screens sold at fast-food outlets. (Without such precautions, sun gazers risk damaging their eyes.) Some will even usher in the event at a roc-'n'-roll celebration on an old armed forces base in Rivers, Man. But the music may be dirgelike. Weathermen are predicting only a 77% chance of clear skies over Winnipeg. As for more southerly latitudes, even a clear sky will not be of much help; as one Winnipeg observer puts it, the difference between a total and partial eclipse is "like night and day." qed

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