Space excitement eclipses campus
The USC community gathered Monday morning to view the solar eclipse with special glasses and professional telescopes.
Eclipse glasses swapped hands, from student to student, at Tommy Trojan on Monday morning as roughly 300 attendees excitedly prepared to witness the first total solar eclipse to cross the contiguous United States since 2017.
While California didn’t experience the phenomenon of totality, the USC community came out to see the moon shrouding about half of the sun’s area to form a bright crescent in the sky, too dangerous to view with the naked eye.
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The eclipse was clear in the sky starting around 10:39 a.m. and peaking at 11:12 a.m. It disappeared by 12:22 p.m., according to the Griffith Observatory. From 10 in the morning to noon, classes were taken out to Tommy Trojan or up on campus parking structures to better view the event.
Vahe Peroomian, a professor of physics and astronomy, set up astronomy-viewing equipment at the center of campus for passersby to get a better glimpse of what he called a “very brief but very important event.”
“What we’re trying to do is raise awareness for a very rare astronomical event, to get people to look up and notice what’s going on in the sky, to maybe have them experience it closer up,” Peroomian said.
The next time the Lower 48 states of the U.S. will experience a total solar eclipse will be in August 2045 — more than 21 years from now.
Peroomian had also brought out special eclipse glasses to hand out for necessary eye protection, which ran out more than an hour before the eclipse’s peak due tobecause of popular demand.
“I’m hoping that students will be able to share that passion we have for astronomy, at least briefly today,” Peroomian said.
Mowen Zhao, a sophomore majoring in astronomy, came out with the Society of Physics Students to help Peroomian set up telescopes for attendees to see the eclipse through professional lenses.
“Oh, my. It’s fun. I’m very stressed,” said Zhao, who saw the partial eclipse last October with his research group at the Mount Wilson Observatory. “It’s nice to go out and enjoy the sun — well, part of the sun.”
For Kristi Skane, a freshman majoring in astronomy, the eclipse was a must-see event.
“I’m literally so excited,” Skane said about a half- hour before the peak. “I emailed my professor to miss class for this.”
The next time the Lower 48 states of the U.S. will experience a total solar eclipse will be in August 2045 — more than 21 years from now.
This year’s eclipse was a widely publicized event that Skane had been looking forward to for months.
“Of course, I’ve been alive for some of them. I think I’ve seen a lunar eclipse before, but this is the first [solar eclipse] that I’ve actually waited for and anticipated, and I’m actually sitting out here and watching it,” Skane said.
The solar eclipse was visible in Los Angeles at 10:39 a.m. and peaked at 11:12 a.m. It was over by 12:22 p.m.
Another attendee, Kaley Chong, loved space as a kid. Chong, a junior majoring in computer science and business administration, grew up near NASA’s Ames Research Center, where she saw Saturn and Mars through telescopes. When she heard about Monday’s viewing event at Tommy Trojan, she knew she had to go.
“There’s resources for me to see, like they’re handing out glasses, so why not?” said Chong, who took and enjoyed Peroomian’s “The Universe” class to fulfill her General Education requirement.
In line to take a look through the professional telescope near Tommy Trojan, Emily Birdwell, a sophomore majoring in astronautical engineering, was passionately explaining the significance of Monday’s eclipse to her friends. Birdwell, who saw 2017’s solar eclipse in totality from her home state of Oregon, said it was a “really special moment.”
“I feel like it’s very human that we all come together to look at stupid silly things like this,” Birdwell said. “It makes you kind of humbled because you realize that you’re in the presence of these giant celestial bodies.”
