Get ready for the “Ring of Fire” solar eclipse on Saturday

Millions of people across the Americas are preparing for an experience like no other on Saturday. The moon will cross the sun, casting a mysterious veil from Oregon to Brazil during an annular solar eclipse.

The astronomical marvel is scheduled to soar this weekend over the western United States, across the Yucatán Peninsula and across several Central American countries, before ending at sunset off the coast of South America. As with the 2017 solar eclipse, which passed through 14 US states, people from different walks of life will come together for a fleeting reminder that we all share the same home within a vast, endless universe.

“You have this moment when you see your place in the universe,” said Frank Marchis, an astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California, who remembers staring in amazement during his first eclipse at an ancient temple in Tokyo.

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon falls between the sun and the Earth. Because the Moon’s orbit is slightly elliptical, rather than a perfect circle, this alignment sometimes occurs when it is furthest from Earth. The result is an annular solar eclipse, or “ring of fire,” that viewers will see this weekend.

In the United States, the annular eclipse will decorate the skies of Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas (in addition to small areas of California and Colorado). It will travel the 125-mile-wide loop path between noon and 1 p.m. ET. People not along this strip of Earth will experience a partial eclipse, including major cities like Seattle, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and Houston.

Wherever you watch, scientists stress that you should never look at an annular eclipse without the proper protective equipment, to avoid harming your eyes.

In National Weather Service forecast models run early Friday, skies are expected to be clear between the Sierra Nevada and Rocky mountain ranges, which could provide viewing opportunities for people in parts of the eclipse’s path across eastern Nevada, northeastern Arizona, western Utah and northern Western New Mexico. . This was also true for most of Central Texas.

But for many other parts of the United States, conditions will likely thwart a partial eclipse, with near-total cloud cover for much of the country by midday Saturday.

Outside of the annular path, much of southern California, Arizona, eastern Texas, southern regions of Oklahoma and Arkansas, and northern regions of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama can get a good look at the partially eclipsed Sun.

Events of all sizes are planned along the loop trail. Dr. Marchis plans to… Setting up telescopes at an event in Oregon With a live band and breakfast hosted by a community of artists and scholars.

Exploratorium in San Francisco Live broadcast of the eclipse From the Valley of the Gods in southern Utah and sharing Navajo knowledge of celestial event. Marysville, Utah, a roadside town of only a few hundred people, has a A three-day party Planned for the expected influx of visitors.

Utah Department of Transportation Expected more than 300,000 visitors To the central region of the state, with heavy traffic. Parts of the state will see more than four minutes and 30 seconds of the episode.

In Roswell, New Mexico – the UFO capital of the world – the annular eclipse will last for an entire day, lasting four minutes and 41 seconds. Science and Art Festival.

The eclipse will cross the state of Texas from its western border to its southeastern border. The area in and around San Antonio, the seventh largest city in the country, is distinguished by its being in the path of two eclipses: the annular eclipse on Saturday and the total eclipse next April, which will begin in Mexico and cross the southern and eastern United States before that. Ends in Canada. Excitement among scientists and locals has been building for months.

“It’s unusual for the location to be within the eclipse crossroads, so for two solar eclipses, how lucky,” said Kate Russo, who calls herself an eclipse hunter. Dr. Russo is visiting San Antonio to witness her third annular eclipse, in addition to the 13 total eclipses she witnessed in 11 countries.

While annular eclipses have visited the San Antonio area about a half-dozen times over the past 500 years, according to Angela Speck, professor and chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Texas at San Antonio, the last total eclipse was in 1397. The next one is scheduled to happen In San Antonio in the year 2200.

“It’s been a really long time,” said Dr. Speck, who proudly has an eclipse tattooed on her left arm.

Several locations in Central and South Texas are preparing for the phenomenon, from Corpus Christi to the Hill Country near Uvalde to San Antonio, which will see more than four minutes of looping.

Dr. Russo, part of the National Solar Eclipse Task Force, arrived in San Antonio about two weeks ago to help prepare the area for the annular eclipse. It will be back in April as well.

She explained that seeing the eclipse never gets old.

“It gets dark all of a sudden, it’s like an explosion – you’re in a whole other world,” she said. “It’s thrilling, thrilling, amazing, chill-inducing, and humbling.”

After the eclipse leaves Texas, it will cross the Gulf of Mexico and head to Central and South America. When it reaches the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, its shadow will cast over cities such as Campeche and Chetumal as well as the pyramids at the Edzna archaeological site where around 5,000 people are expected to be present. Researchers, scientists and local officials have planned events throughout the peninsula. The “Festival of the Sun” in Campeche on the evening before the eclipse will include concerts, dance performances and indigenous traditions.

Schoolchildren will visit an archaeological site on the small island of Jaina to watch the eclipse. Local officials in Campeche have warned of an increased influx of tourists into the area and have opened additional viewing sites in parks, gardens, art centers and even a nursing home. Some sites will have telescopes with filters for the audience.

Daniela Terhuni, a member of the Yucatan Eclipse Commission, noted at a press conference in August that the region will celebrate its Mayan heritage as the eclipse makes its way through the heart of indigenous land. Historically, an eclipse was an inauspicious event for the indigenous Maya people. But some Mayans offered another point of view on this event.

The October 14 eclipse is a new opportunity to evaluate “Maya wisdom, based on knowledge and observation of the universe and the movement of the stars,” says Carlos Chablis Mendoza, a Maya writer, historian and cultural promoter in Quintana Roo. Tell La Jornada Maya on Thursday.

“Remember that we, the Maya people, are masters of time,” he added, recalling what the eclipse meant to previous generations of Maya peoples. “So the eclipse that will occur, like other eclipses that have occurred over these thousands of years, serves to measure time.”

Although solar eclipses have been observed for thousands of years, the science is not yet settled.

“There is still a lot to learn about the Sun,” says Amir Kaspi, a physicist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

On Saturday, some researchers plan to He used radios to study how solar eclipses affect the ionosphere, the part of the Earth’s atmosphere that meets space. Another project In california It will measure radio emissions from solar hotspots to study their connection to space weather. More experiments are planned to be conducted Total solar eclipse in April.

But you don’t have to be a scientist to feel the importance of a solar eclipse.

“It’s a unique opportunity to see the magic clock mechanism of our solar system,” said Dan Seaton, a physicist at the Southwest Research Institute who will work with Dr. Caspi on an experiment observing the Sun’s upper atmosphere.

It also encourages viewers to watch how their surroundings change during an annular eclipse: the air will cool, birds may roost and shadows will deepen as the moon engulfs the sun.

Dr. Marchis recommends documenting as much of the experience as possible that weekend.

“For every eclipse, I have a memory — a story to tell,” he said.

John Keefe Contribute to reporting and Emiliano Rodriguez Mega He contributed to the research from Mexico City.