Eyes will look to the skies Monday, April 8 as a large swath of the country will see a total solar eclipse when the moon passes directly between the Earth and the Sun. The Earth’s satellite will start its path in front of the star at 2:12 p.m. and at 3.26 p.m., will completely blot it out. At the moment of “Totality,” the moon, which is the perfect size to completely cover the Sun, will appear as a dark disc as light dances around its edges. The Earth will become decidedly darker. After the total eclipse, the moon will continue on its 2,000-plus mile-per-hour path until it completely passes by at 4:37 p.m.
DO NOT look directly at the Sun during the eclipse, or any time for that matter, since the bright rays will damage your eyes. Special glasses are made to view the eclipse–not regular sunglasses–and a pair can be picked up at the state Welcome Center between Long Island Expressway Exits 51 and 52 in Dix Hills. Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has had a special Interagency Task Force working for the last 17 months to prepare the state for the event, urged residents to be wary of counterfeit glasses that may not offer adequate eye protection. She also asked for people to be patient while traveling to watch the eclipse and cautioned against phony accommodations advertised in the optimal viewing areas.
“We saw from the last experience many years ago that there were a lot of traffic jams and people running out of gas," Hochul noted. "We're not going to let that happen in New York. We're New Yorkers, and we'll be prepared." While partial eclipses are more common, the last time New York experienced a total covering of the Sun was in 1925. The next totality for the state will be in 2079. While Long Island will see a near-total eclipse, the exact path for maximum coverage will span across 29 counties in the western and northern parts of the state, drawing viewers to those areas and necessitating the abundance of caution expressed by the governor.
"The April 8 eclipse is a once-in-a-generation experience, and there’s no better place to view it than in our beautiful state," Hochul said. "New York is ready to welcome millions of visitors, and my administration has been working hard to ensure everyone in the path of the eclipse can safely enjoy this rare event. I encourage anyone traveling for this experience to plan on arriving early to their destination and staying late to enjoy all of what our state has to offer."
Showing off her “I NY” spirit, the governor offered, “Come for the eclipse, stay for New York.” The Buffalo Bills football team, the only NFL franchise that actually plays in the state, appeared in a promotional video as part of a multi-platform ad campaign. They’ve even created a special 80-song eclipse playlist on Spotify, featuring classics such as Bonnie Tyler's “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles, David Bowie's “Starman,” and “Welcome to New York” by Taylor Swift. For more information, visit www.iloveny.com.
Man’s recognition of eclipses dates back thousands of years. Petroglyphs in Ireland caves over 5,000 years old show drawings of the celestial events. Scribes in China 3,000 years ago recorded eclipses on oxen shoulder blades and tortoise shells known as oracle bones. They noted that the “The Sun has been eaten.” A team of astronomers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory studied these records to research changes in Earth’s rotation. Knowing exactly when the eclipse was seen and where the Moon's shadow fell on Earth enabled them to calculate the rate of Earth's spin and determine that it has slowed down 47 thousandths of a second per day in the past 3,200 years.
Lunar eclipses also occur when the Earth passes between the moon and the Sun. Christopher Columbus used his knowledge of the movement of the sphere’s to save himself and his crew during one of his voyages. The explorer found himself stranded in Hispaniola and the native inhabitants were growing weary of the foreign presence. They stopped providing food and were becoming hostile. Knowing an eclipse would occur, Columbus told the tribal leader that God was angry with their treatment of him and would show it by making the moon appear “inflamed with wrath.” When his prediction came to pass, they supplied Columbus’ ships with fresh provisions and begged him to pray to his God for protection.