Tech Shout!

Everyone around the world will be gathering at various spots throughout the globe, to view the first total solar eclipse in years. The presence of the total solar eclipse is to be felt most from Brazil to Mongolia and will scar the sun across a few other lands.

A solar eclipse occurs when the Sun, Moon and Earth are on a single line with the Moon in the middle. Seen from the Earth, the Moon is in front of the Sun and thus part or all of the light of the Sun is eclipsed by the Moon. Thus it may seem that a piece has been taken out of the Sun, or that it has suddenly disappeared. The Sun’s corona can only be seen during a solar eclipse. In a total solar eclipse the moon covers the sun completely.

The last such eclipse in November 2003 was most visible from Antarctica, said Alex Young, a NASA scientist involved in solar research.

Today’s eclipse will block the sun in highly populated areas, including West Africa.

In Togo, authorities imported hundreds of thousands of pairs of special glasses that consumers cleared rapidly from shelves in the capital, Lome. Villagers in the interior will not have access to the eyewear and officials called on them to stay home.

In a message broadcast on state television, Togo’s minister for health addressed the people saying, “Please, do not go out and keep your children indoors on solar eclipse day.”

“Imagine if your hair was to stand up from static electricity, that’s kind of what the corona looks like all around the sun,” NASA’s Young said. But the corona’s light can burn eyes.

In Ghana, where the effect will be particularly visible, people were spending about $1 for “solar shades,” paper-rimmed glasses with dark plastic lenses that resemble eyewear used for viewing three-dimensional movies.

The moon is expected to first begin blocking out the sun in the morning in Brazil before the eclipse migrates to Africa, then on to Turkey and up into Mongolia, where it will fade out with the sunset.

Total eclipses are rare because they require the tilted orbits of the sun, moon and earth to line up exactly so that the moon obscures the sun completely. The next total eclipse will occur in 2008.

Superstition will follow around the world, as it has for generations.

Infact in Turkey a teacher conducted live lessons on the topic of solar eclipse. Mrs. K — taught a lesson on Tuesday filled with penumbras and ellipses and burned retinas to a media center filled with students in her third-, fourth- and fifth-grade classes.

Mrs. K, who teaches English to children who speak other languages, was enthralled by the experience. “I find myself more and more interested in science,” she said. She jokingly added, “Maybe I should change and become a science teacher.”