>https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamiecartereurope/2023/10/07/why-nasa-will-fire-three-rockets-at-the-ring-of-fire-solar-eclipse/?sh=4e0b28e16375
400 Years ???
I have never heard a larger pile of bullshit. We have electron microscopes, electron telescopes and enough satellites to give the earth acne, but we need to shoot rockets at the shadow of the moon to measure the difference between dusk and dark in the ionosphere. This is ritualistic
What The Rockets Will Do
NASA will look for perturbations—changes in the Earth’s atmosphere—during the eclipse. “There will be three NASA-funded suborbital rockets, each of which will launch before, during and after the peak of the eclipse to gather data on Earth’s atmosphere, electron density and temperature,” said Madhulika Guhathakurta, heliophysics program scientist, in a press briefing at NASA Headquarters.
After thetotal solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, the next one over the contiguous U.S. is not until 2044, while the next annular solar eclipse after this Saturday’s is not until 2046.
The rockets, which will launch 35 minutes apart, will travel to about 50 miles up into the ionosphere, where the air becomes electric. Here, a sea of ions and electrons wax and wane in temperature and density at sunrise and sunset. During an eclipse—when sunlight vanishes quickly—it’s expected that waves will ripple through the ionosphere.“This is the first time we have done this because such an opportunity only comes once in about 400 years,” said Guhathakurta.