SC State students get a ‘cool’ glimpse of astronomy in action with Monday’s rare partial solar eclipse

ORANGEBURG, S.C. – Although South Carolina State University was not in the path of totality for Monday’s rare solar eclipse, students still got a charge out of seeing the moon obscure most of the sun.

“I don’t know the last time I saw an eclipse,” said Jordan Haygood, a senior criminal justice major from Greenville, South Carolina. “I see it now, and it looks cool. It’s an orange crescent shape.”

That orange crescent above the crowd on the SC State Student Plaza was at its slimmest at 3:10 p.m. As seen through special glasses designed to shield the eyes from damaging rays, the moon blocked 74% of the sun’s disk. From Texas through the Midwest and into England, observers along a 150-mile-wide swath could see the disk completely obscured by the moon.

A total solar eclipse generally occurs two to four times per year somewhere in the world, but Monday’s eclipse was the last for the contiguous 48 states until August 23, 2044. Disappointingly, South Carolina won’t be in that eclipse’s path. The state’s southwest coast will be in the path in 2052, but the next one visible from the Midlands will be on May 11, 2078 – 54 years from now.

"Wow, I’ll be like 75. They’re so rare.,” Haygood said. “It’s pretty cool when you think about it because a lot of kids who are in school right now. Their teachers are probably telling them they won’t see another one for 50 years, and they won’t understand it.“But when they see the next one in 50 years, they will remember that they saw this one,” she said.

The timing for Monday’s eclipse could not have been better, since it coincided with Bulldog Fest, an event that brought hundreds of students out to the plaza, where the SC State Society of Physics distributed the safety glasses.

“I think the thing I’ve enjoyed the most is so many of them are just amazed,” said Dr. Donald Walter, a physics professor and academic coordinator of SC State’s Physics Program. “They think it looks cool. To me, with just a sliver or crescent of the sun, it’s not as spectacular as the one we saw earlier (in 2017) with totality.

”But to them, it’s really neat to see it and to see the progression. Some of them have been out here for an hour and they got to see the moon slowly cover up more and more of the sun,” Walter said.

The Society of Physics also brought projection devices, which allowed students to see sunspots, and a colander, which allowed them to see a crescent shadow on a surface. Many in the crowd donned NASA stickers and “I Love Physics” buttons distributed by the Society of PhysicsThe message was simple: Science is cool.

“I think every time this happens, it’s a sight to see,” said Thomas Alston, a marketing major from Columbus, Ohio. “You can’t really miss something this big – like an eclipse happening. It’s always an interesting sight.

“The science is not intimidating. It’s pretty simple to understand what’s happening. It’s also kind of fun just to come out and view it, especially when you bring people together to see it,” Alston said.