- Photograph by Martin Bernetti, AFP/Getty ImagesDuring Sunday's total solar eclipse, the moon covered the sun over Easter Island, so that only the faint, white ring of the sun's upper atmosphere, or corona, was visible.
Eclipse expert and National Geographic grantee Jay Pasachoff, Field Memorial Professor at Williams College in Massachusetts, was on Easter Island to witness his 51st solar eclipse. According to Pasachoff, eclipses offer scientists unique opportunities to study the corona, parts of which are invisible even to sun-watching satellites.
"On the days of eclipses—and only on those days—can we supply high-quality images of the inner and middle corona that fill in the gaps in spacecraft coverage," Pasachoff told National Geographic News last week. "We can learn about the sun's magnetic field and the relation of the sun and the Earth by studying eclipses."
(The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)
Published July 12, 2010
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