Western Europe’s first total solar eclipse since 1999 is scheduled for 12 August. Researchers will use the event to study the Sun and Earth’s atmosphere with low-cost experiments from ground, air and balloons.
The eclipse will bring totality to eastern Greenland, western Iceland and northern Spain. Teams from several US universities plan to release high-altitude balloons in Spain and Iceland carrying cameras, ozone sensors and radiosondes to measure changes in the planetary boundary layer.
NASA’s WB-57 aircraft will fly during the eclipse to capture polarised coronal light and infrared observations that are difficult from the ground. The Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project and Citizen CATE experiment will repeat successful 2024 methods to create a timelapse of the solar corona.
Solar physicist Ryan French noted that eclipses allow novel research ideas without the need for large spacecraft grants. Other groups will use spectroscopy to examine plasma speeds and temperatures, refine measurements of the Sun’s radius and test for possible auroral activity over Iceland.