The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
– Frequent flyer –
Glenn Schneider, an astronomer at the University of Arizona, saw his first total eclipse when he was 14, and recalls a sensation of being frozen in time.
“I realized that this was the start of something that had changed my life, that I was going to have to see the next one. And the next one,” he said.
“It almost sounds like it is an addictive phenomenon and it is. You should warn people of that.”
Total solar eclipses happen on average about every 16 months somewhere on Earth.
Schneider has missed only a handful.
He still laments “the one that got away” — an eclipse he missed in 1985 that brushed the coast of Antarctica.
But he has managed to get himself in the Moon’s umbral shadow 33 times so far.
“I save my frequent flyer miles for eclipses,” he said.
And now, the time between eclipses is “sort of a mundane reality,” he said.
He has plans for every future eclipse, including one at sunrise over New York in May 2079 when he would be 123 years old.
“I don’t think I am going to make it but I’ve left information for my daughter for her to go and see it,” he said.
For Schneider, it’s not just the view, or the scientific interest he has in the phenomenon.
“We are talking about a very visceral, emotional connection,” he said.
“You really get a sense of celestial mechanics in action.”
Espenak agreed.
To experience an eclipse “gives you a sense of perspective that you don’t get any other way,” he said.
“How insignificant we are compared to the whole system. How inconsequential some of the struggles we have with politics and the nonsense going on in our daily lives,” he added.
“When the grand scheme of the solar system is played out in front of us, it’s a humbling experience.”
Click any location on our interactive #Eclipse2017 map to find out eclipse times & type: https://t.co/VHNcvz0SPE pic.twitter.com/HFAE48POV6
— NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) August 20, 2017
