Eclipse chasers from all corners of the globe have descended on a tiny Western Australian town to watch the sun disappear behind the moon.
Among them are the Solar Wind Sherpas, an international team of scientific adventurers who have tracked solar eclipses across the Sahara and Mongolia, in Svalbard and Antarctica.
Now, they’re joining about 20,000 people who will see the total solar eclipse from Exmouth, population (normally) about 2,800 – the gateway town to the Ningaloo Reef and its famous whale sharks.
It will be a rare hybrid eclipse, lasting about three hours. For about a minute, at 11.29am local time on Thursday, the Earth, moon and sun will align perfectly, the moon covering the sun’s disc. There will be a shimmering corona, like a halo around the moon, and the stars and planets will become visible. The temperature will drop. Animals will start acting strangely.
The eclipse will pass directly over Exmouth, where crowds will gather in dedicated viewing areas. As the sky goes dark, others will watch from boats and ships and from parts of Timor-Leste and Indonesia. The rest of Australia will be able to see a partial eclipse.
The Solar Wind Sherpas – so called because they haul around piles of equipment to study solar winds and space weather – have 13 members, from countries including Germany, the Czech Republic and the US.
Their head sherpa, Shadia Habbal, is an astronomy professor at the University of Hawaii.
Habbal says they will be studying the sun’s corona, its “fast bursts of energy” in its active regions.
“There are these dense and very hot arches, what we call loops, around the sunspots, there is a group of them that’s going to be visible off the west loop, the right side of the sun,” she says.
The sherpas will set up cameras and spectrometers and use special filters that show up the corona in different colours, correlating to how hot they are.
This year, for the first time, they will fly a kite above any clouds, 1,000 metres into the air with a spectrometer on board.
“These data are really unique, despite the fact we have so many spacecraft in orbit. None of them can gather these observations, starting from the solar surface,” Habbal says.
“This is the critical region of the corona.”
By studying what’s happening with the corona, the solar winds and what happens when they hit the Earth’s magnetic field, the sherpas are finding out more about how space weather affects Earth, disrupting power and GPS systems.
“The other aspect of eclipses is really you get to go to places you wouldn’t normally necessarily go to, communities you don’t know much about,” Habbal says.
“It’s wonderful to see the grace of humanity being everywhere and the kindness of Australian people – they’re very open and welcoming.”
Eclipse chasing has been described as an addiction, with some chasers clocking up dozens of viewings of the celestial show.
According to an online eclipse chaser log, the American expeditioner Paul Maley tops the list with 81 eclipses visited, and 1 hour, 11 minutes and 33 seconds in “totality”, or complete darkness.
The top Australian on the list is Terry Cuttle, from the International Astronomical Union’s working group on solar eclipses. Since his first eclipse (1976, Melbourne), he’s clocked up about 30, with 36 minutes and 55 seconds in totality. Guardian Australia catches him when he’s about 200km away from Exmouth. He has driven from Brisbane and has been on the road for about three weeks.
He says he’s always been interested in astronomy and in photographing astronomy’s “transient things” such as comets, meteor showers and eclipses. An event like an eclipse is a chance to bring science to the people.
“It’s an opportunity for people to really experience the universe in motion, you can see the moon moving,” he says.
“One of the most spectacular things is seeing the sun completely obscured by the moon, then lined up on either side you can see the planets … you can witness the solar system.”
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‘When and where can I see another one?’
For a time it seemed as though Exmouth itself was in danger of being eclipsed by the eclipse chasers.
The authorities had to open an overflow camp site, bring in temporary water tanks, upgrade telecommunication infrastructure and spend millions on traffic management and improved beach facilities.
But now it’s ready to welcome tens of thousands of people, from Nasa scientists to the sherpas to the hordes of amateur eclipse chasers.
Kate Russo, an Australian psychologist turned eclipse chaser and eclipse community planner, writes that chasing the path of totality becomes a “way of life”, a “total addiction”.
She describes an eclipse chaser as “someone who has given in to their insatiable desire to re-experience the thrill and excitement of totality”.
The president of the Astronomical Society of Australia, Prof John Lattanzio, says people can get addicted to “that minute or so of eerie otherworldliness known as totality”.
He notes that Australia will have five total eclipses over the next 15 years, including one in Sydney in 2028.
“The awe of a total solar eclipse is one way for everyone to experience the wonders of the universe,” he says.
It’s not just humans that experience that otherworldiness. A 2020 study of 17 species – mammals, birds, and reptiles – during an eclipse found three in four were affected by the phenomenon.
Some started their evening routines early. Many were anxious. Baboons ran and paced, gorillas became aggressive, giraffes swayed, flamingoes gathered around their young and made more noise, lorikeets swooped, became louder, then went silent.
A grizzly bear woke up, a kookaburra laughed more and a Galápagos tortoise gazed skyward. (Whale sharks were not included in the study).
Cuttle says the humans, at least, will be hoping for clear skies, as he describes his previous totalities.
He recalls “the looming ominous shadow of the moon as it rushes towards you, the dramatic change in light as daylight suddenly changes to a deep twilight, the appearance of the planets in the daytime sky strung out with the solar system in full view”.
“And the stunning sight of the sun appearing as a black hole in the sky surrounded by [its] glowing pearly white corona.
“These all combine in such a dramatic experience that people almost invariably want to experience it again.
“The most common question after an eclipse [is]: when and where can I see another one?”