The Solar Eclipse 2017
Solar Eclipse 2017
By Vittoria La Matta
The clock reads 1:09, 5 more minutes till the peak time. You can feel the tension in our class, everyone is excited after all this preparing, after hearing about this in the news, something so extraordinary people were willing to spend a fortune for just 3 minutes of their life, something they could have just watched on TV for free. It was almost here, this was going to be a rare moment in history, something not everyone is lucky enough to experience.
It is 1:13, 1 more minute till the big moment. We process outside one by one, put our special glasses on, look up and there it is, what we have all been waiting for, nature at its finest. The sky dims a little bit as if a cloud went over the sun, the chickens go silent as if they sense what is happening. All you can hear is our whispers, everything had gone silent, even the wind stopped for a second, as if it were paying respect to the sun. I look up and feel some mixed emotions. I was expecting for the moon to cover all of the sun, so I waited and waited, as it got closer and closer to its spot then it stopped, it reached its peak, and it was so anticlimactic. It looked like a glowing orange someone decide to take a bite out of. No, we did not get to experience totality and see the sky darken completely, and experience the thing that may civilizations feared, that for generations people wondered what this was, the things that even scared animals enough to keep them silent. Aside from this I was stilled moved by this experience, and wanted to stare at the bright glowing orange crescent in the sky forever, yet the smarter side of me told me to look away, even though my curious side was tempting me too look back, and get blinded by the sun's rays. I was super thankful I got to experience this eclipse even though it was not a full one because afterword I was told that in a couple of generations people may not be able to experience this because the moon would be to far away from the sun to align perfectly with the sun, and create this breathtaking moment.
I have never been interested in space, but after experiencing this eye opening moment it filled me with curiosity about the wonders of the empty void space is. Thinking about it too much and how much we still don't know sends shivers down my spine. Imagine how people back then felt when they had no explanation for this, and were not able to look at the sun. People fear the unknown, especially when it gets dark all of a sudden and you have no idea what is going on.
The Solar Eclipse 2017
By Sarah Lopez
As the sound of the live stream pours into the kiva, my only wish is to witness a rare moment in history when the moon slowly creeps across the sky, and across the sun to make the solar eclipse. It is said to be a stunning display no one wants to miss. As the time ticks down to the peak of the moon, the class rings with excitement, waiting for the arrival of the eclipse. It seems as though the time will never come, we are taken out by groups to take a glimpse of the before picture, only to see the clouds covering the sun. As we wait for the big moment we watch the live stream with complete amazement. The sky goes dark the temperature drops all of the descriptions from the news reporter sounds magical. I am taken away with the experience that we will be so privileged to see. As the time comes nearer, my nerves only build up, and so do the lessons.
A second time we are taken out this time I can see with specially equipped glasses that the moon is starting to take its place in front of the sun, the only problem is it has not gotten cooler, nor has the sky gotten any darker I was starting to doubt the actual amazing part of the solar eclipse. As I am told, the eclipse will not happen until another seven years my excitement is boosted but I don't ignore the fact that the sky has not turned dark. As we pile back into the kiva I wait impatiently peering out into the window waiting for the darkness but it never comes, even as my hopes drop i hold on to the tiny chance it could dark. When the time finally comes I race to the door grabbing the glasses I peer up into the sky to see the moon only covering half of the sun, the sky was not dark and the temperature had not gone down but it had risen. I stare at it with amusement and a little disappointment. Although it was not the full experience I had hoped for, I continued to stare at what looked like the sun and moon had changed places in the sky.
When the little gap I had to look at the eclipse was over I soon found out that in houston we would not get the totality of the eclipse meaning the big amazing experience I hoped for was actually in Kentucky. I still felt very fortunate to see a historical moment when the moon and the sun meet to make a display worth the wait.
The Solar Eclipse
By Julia Yanosik
The Solar Eclipse is something that everyone around the world looks forward to, and it’s not something that you get to see just everyday. Everyone in the class was excited, and we were waiting for what seemed like ages until we were aloud to go see the eclipse.
To see the eclipse, we were taken outside in small groups to get a glimpse of one of the world's most amazing sights. Even though Houston is not in the path of totality, our seats to the show are not bad, and it was still a cool experience.
Lucky for us, we got to experience two different sides to the eclipse: once to see it when it first began, and once when it was at it’s peak. It may seem surprising, but my favorite of the two was the beginning. I found that because we don’t get to see the total eclipse, the peak of the cycle in Houston looked like an ordinary crescent moon, except yellow because it was the sun. After all the hype about it getting dark, and the animals changing into nighttime mode, and the environment getting cold and eerie, I was definitely expecting something cooler, and you can imagine what I was thinking when I went outside and nothing had changed…peak time wasn’t all that great. The best part was the very beginning. The sun looked almost like a big orange apple that someone decided to take a bite out of. My instincts told me that this was super strange…Why on earth is there a piece missing out of the sun?
One thing that is really cool about the crescent sun, is that there are a lot of cool science experiments you can do at this point in the cycle that are really interesting and fun. One that I did was a way of viewing the eclipse with a colander. Because of the way the sun's rays work, the shadow that the colander creates shows dozens of miniature eclipses, instead of just one big eclipse.
Even though I was a bit disappointed by the crescent sun, it was a really great experience overall. I hope that one day I will get to see the total eclipse, the full experience, where the sun will be fully covered at totality, but for now this was a good preview.