Mom and the Eclipse
The greatest lesson of the cosmos? Mother knows best
Six years as a space reporter taught me that chaos reigns supreme. I have watched enough go wrong to know that no mission or any view of a celestial event is ever truly promised to us terrestrial observers.
So when my mother and I decided to drive out to Erie, Pennsylvania, to see the 8 April solar eclipse this year within the path of totality, I knew this would be a trip of two clashing attitudes. I’d be pessimistic about the weather and convinced we’d be victims of the randomness that governs the world; my mom would have strong faith that order would triumph and the skies would let us glimpse an eclipse like this for the first time in our lives. I told her not to count on the universe for this one; she told me she wouldn’t count on anything else.
I was once again humbled into a lesson I’ve learnt time and time again: Mama knows best. Erie’s forecast that morning was looking abysmal, but by the time first contact between the sun and the moon began a little after 2 p.m., the clouds over the city’s bayfront began to disperse. The pale yellow sun under the eclipse lenses rapidly crested, concentrating into a fierce orange glow.
Totality struck at 3:16 p.m. A thin white glow pierced out from the edge of a clean black circle. The colors of the sunset eerily bloomed in the distance. Clamouring seagulls took a haphazard flight. I could spot solar prominences (regions of intense magnetism) jutting from the sides of the sun in tiny hints of bright red and pink. Jupiter and Venus made cameos. It felt like bearing witness to something close to a miracle.
Four minutes later, totality ended. The sun brightened again. And the clouds returned with a vengeance, swallowing up the moon and the sun and the sky in gray. But for four incredible minutes, the universe seems to have made good on a promise to my mother.
The New York Times (8 April 2024), copyright © 2024 by The New Yo...
Six years as a space reporter taught me that chaos reigns supreme. I have watched enough go wrong to know that no mission or any view of a celestial event is ever truly promised to us terrestrial observers.
So when my mother and I decided to drive out to Erie, Pennsylvania, to see the 8 April solar eclipse this year within the path of totality, I knew this would be a trip of two clashing attitudes. I’d be pessimistic about the weather and convinced we’d be victims of the randomness that governs the world; my mom would have strong faith that order would triumph and the skies would let us glimpse an eclipse like this for the first time in our lives. I told her not to count on the universe for this one; she told me she wouldn’t count on anything else.
I was once again humbled into a lesson I’ve learnt time and time again: Mama knows best. Erie’s forecast that morning was looking abysmal, but by the time first contact between the sun and the moon began a little after 2 p.m., the clouds over the city’s bayfront began to disperse. The pale yellow sun under the eclipse lenses rapidly crested, concentrating into a fierce orange glow.
Totality struck at 3:16 p.m. A thin white glow pierced out from the edge of a clean black circle. The colors of the sunset eerily bloomed in the distance. Clamouring seagulls took a haphazard flight. I could spot solar prominences (regions of intense magnetism) jutting from the sides of the sun in tiny hints of bright red and pink. Jupiter and Venus made cameos. It felt like bearing witness to something close to a miracle.
Four minutes later, totality ended. The sun brightened again. And the clouds returned with a vengeance, swallowing up the moon and the sun and the sky in gray. But for four incredible minutes, the universe seems to have made good on a promise to my mother.
The New York Times (8 April 2024), copyright © 2024 by The New York Times Company.