MARTINSVILLE, Ill. — Crowds of people bustle about at the Martinsville Agricultural Fairgrounds on a Monday afternoon with their eyes on the sky. The air ripples with excitement as we eagerly await our chance to witness the moon consuming the sun — a total solar eclipse!
I am one of many students representing the University of Illinois Astronomical Society and the Outdoor Adventure Club. Our Great American Eclipse event has us positioned well within the path of totality, a swath of Earth’s surface where the moon completely obscures the sun. Hundreds of ecstatic public spectators have gathered, children yelping excitedly at the telescopes and space demonstrations we’ve set up.
At one of our exhibits, a family is transfixed by a display of marbles pressing down on cloth. The young daughter, tinkering with clunky eclipse glasses, listens intently to my explanation about how the planets are like these marbles, and smaller planets like the Earth roll towards bigger ones like the sun. It’s a lesson in gravity and how mass “presses down” on the space-time fabric of this universe.
“Is that Pac-Man?” the girl asks, looking beyond me to the sky. The moon is stealing the slightest piece of our sun, such that it does resemble the beloved video game icon.
First contact. There’s an almost audible whoosh when all our heads swivel as one, holding our glasses over our eyes to see what the girl has pointed out. A poetic moment — during the total solar eclipse of 1919, Sir Arthur Eddington observed how starlight bends around the sun, reinforcing Einstein’s theories of the very space-time fabric I was just describing. Particles of light were like little marbles swirling around the massive star!
The moon begins on its warpath. We gawk as the sun, which lights up our every day, seems to be sheared by the moon. The hour that follows is surreal. We are lucky enough to know about this occurrence, but our ancestors simply watched in horror as the moon devoured the sun. Indeed, they left us wondrous tales of a “sun-eating dragon” that caused an eclipse when angered.
A single musical peal pierces the tension, and I exchange a smirk with a friend who just hit our metal drum. After all, the ancients played such drums to scare away the fabled dragon.
“Ninety percent coverage now,” I bellow through the megaphone after a quick glance through a telescope, hardly able to contain the giddiness in my voice. All human conversation dissolves into enthused hand-waving and gasps of childlike awe. “Thirty seconds to go! Look out for the fireworks,” I yell.
It looks as if the sky is having a teary-eyed yawn, as beads of light dance along the moon’s edge. These are Baily’s beads — sunlight sieving through the moon’s craters and mountains. They grow more and more frantic before coalescing into one massive radiant plume that is known as the diamond ring effect. Only a shard of sun and its fiery corona now emblazon the skies. I steal a glance at my surroundings and watch shadows flit across my friends’ faces.
Totality.
The air stills. I hold my breath as darkness sweeps across the field, and the stars blink into view. For a split second, there is complete silence. We are adrift in the infinities of the cosmos, and here is the ultimate proof. I blink, but the sun remains dark, as if its eye is still closed. The crowd absolutely erupts, with roars of disbelief ricocheting through us all. I’m tackled with the hugs of my lovely friends, and we do a little happy dance under the daytime stars.
For two minutes and 19 seconds, no force in the observable universe can wipe the smiles off our faces.