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Well, today is a special day that only happens twice a year – the equinox.

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And normally when the Earth moves around the sun it actually spins at a tilt

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and so that means that most of the year the northern and southern hemispheres are not equally illuminated by the sun’s light.

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But on these special days – the spring and fall equinox –

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both north and south are equally illuminated and give us the astronomical beginnings of spring.

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Well August 21 is a really exciting day because we’re going to have a total solar eclipse.

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Now all of North America is going to experience at least a partial eclipse –

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the moon moving across the sun, blocking out the disk.

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Um – but then the special path from Oregon all the way to South Carolina, crossing the entire continent.

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In there you get to experience a total solar eclipse where the bright sun’s disk is blocked out completely by the moon,

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allowing us to see this amazing outer part of the atmosphere called the solar corona.

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Well it’s not – they’re not that rare, but what they are is rare occurring where people are.

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And so this one is especially exciting because the path of totality, where the moon is going to completely block out the sun,

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is starting in Oregon and traveling all across the United States.

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The last time that happened was 1918 and

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everyone in North America is going to get to experience at least a partial eclipse and

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if you can see the total eclipse then you get to experience the very amazing outer atmosphere

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of the sun called the corona, which we normally have to look at from space.

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So, as long as you use the proper safety glasses – uh

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you’ll get to experience this amazing event and people can watch it online

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and see the totality from all across the U.S.

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Well we are always looking at the sun from space and we create an artificial eclipse,

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blocking out the bright disk allowing us to see the faint corona in visible light.

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But, nature does it so much better. And so, seeing it from the ground, especially for such a long period of time,

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is a wonderful experience and an opportunity for us to look at this part of the atmosphere

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of the sun that creates all of this amazing activity that we call space weather.

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And, in fact, this is leading up to 2018 when we’re launching spacecraft to go to the sun itself.

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We’re going to travel through that part of the atmosphere

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and touch a star for the first time in human history.

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Absolutely, the best place to start is eclipse2017.nasa.gov

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where you can find out all about the eclipse, safety as well as how you can watch it in person and online.