Episode 1649 • • 24:59 - 29:58
1649: Stay Alarmed
Solar Eclipse Shadow Bands, University of Pittsburgh Research
University of Pittsburgh students traveled to the Texas Hill Country to study "shadow bands," a 200-year-old mystery involving wavy lines of light appearing just before and after eclipse totality. First documented by Hermann Goldschmidt in 1820, theories suggest the bands are caused by atmospheric refraction or sunlight bending around the moon. Researchers used high-altitude weather balloons to test if the phenomenon exists above the atmosphere.