Darkness and a profound sense of awe swept across southern Missouri and Illinois shortly before 2 p.m. Monday as the moon passed between Earth and the sun, temporarily blocking its light for minutes.
Total solar eclipses occur every year or two, but it is exceedingly rare for the paths of two of them to intersect only a handful of years apart, as they have in a swath of southern Missouri and Illinois. Carbondale, Illinois, has been located near the center of the path both in August 2017 and Monday.
How rare is that in a span of a little less than seven years? “About one in a billion,” according to Travis Wohlrab, public engagement officer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts the next total solar eclipse will be in August 2026. It will cover portions of the Arctic, eastern Greenland, Iceland and northern Spain. The next total solar eclipse in the U.S. won’t be until 2044.
St. Louis Public Radio had reporters at several points in the eclipse's path of totality.
CARBONDALE, Ill. — Nina Seidler Wagner trembled while watching the total solar eclipse alongside 15,000 umbraphiles at Southern Illinois University’s Saluki Stadium. “I've got goosebumps,” Wagner said, her voice wavering, as she held back tears shortly after the moon slipped in front of the sun. “It was awesome. It was unbelievable.”
After watching the 2017 total solar eclipse in Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, the librarian from Colgate, Wisconsin, promised herself she would find a way to see it in 2024. This time around, she brought 13 family members.
"It is something so few people get to experience and when they do experience it, they understand why it is so life changing," she said. "I think those of us who are eclipse evangelists, who have talked about our experience, really just find it fascinating.”
Eclipse watchers at Saluki Stadium had good weather on their side — warm skies and no clouds. That was not the case in 2017, when clouds obscured the stadium during the eclipse’s totality.
Sarah Maxwell, of Lee’s Summit, Missouri, remembers that experience all too well. “I saw partial eclipse, but unfortunately, the clouds went over right before totality,” she said while standing next to her telescope in a field near the football stadium. “It was amazing!” Maxwell said after totality passed. “I’m so happy we drove to Illinois because [the eclipse] exceeded my expectations.”
Arelene Mendez traveled from Dallas, Texas, to Makanda, Illinois, for a chance to watch the eclipse with her boyfriend and daughter. She believes that the celestial spectacle can be a spiritual event for many, and it made her to reflect on life. “I think in a world where we feel so big and powerful, I think things like this help remind us that we’re a small piece of the bigger puzzle.”
BURFORDVILLE, Mo. — Eclipses raise a lot of questions. In the early days of scientific discovery, they helped us answer them, too. Scientists used eclipses to study our solar system.
Now, satellites and other tools help us take a lot of measurements without the need for eclipses. With that in mind, scientists from Washington University decided to answer other questions during the eclipse — questions from the public.
Maxwell Lograsso had a lot of them — like, why we have to wear glasses when we look at eclipses and why it looks like the dark side of the moon is blocking the sun during the eclipse. The 10-year-old and his grandparents traveled from Waukon, Iowa, to the Bollinger Mill State Historic Site in Burfordville, Missouri, where the Wash U professors had set up a tent with eclipse viewing equipment and Ph.D.s at the ready.
“It’s so exciting to be able to show the science to everyone here, because everyone is here because they want to be,” said Mike Krawczynski, an associate professor at Wash U who researches planetary formation and evolution. “They want to learn. They want to see this stuff, and I want to be able to show them as much as we possibly can.”
Maxwell, a fourth grader and self-described science geek, wants to be an astronaut when he grows up.
“Mike told me that there is no dark side of the moon,” Maxwell said. “There’s a day side and a night side, and I don’t remember all the other big words he said.”
As the moon began to block the sun in Burfordville, the 1,500 or so people sitting in lawn chairs in a field began to cheer. In the cool darkness, Maxwell was bouncing up and down.
“It’s amazing,” he yelled. “I’m like, ‘Oh my God.’ When I couldn’t see it in my glasses, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what happened?’ I take off my glasses and I’m like, ‘Oh my God, that’s so cool!’”
Even after multiple eclipse viewings and a career dedicated to planetary science, Krawczynski’s reaction wasn’t much different.
“Oh it was spectacular,” he said. “Huge prominence coming off the bottom, which is great to see.”
Immediately, bystander David Carlson asked what a prominence is. Krawczynski explained it’s the chromosphere having an eruption, basically, and looks like a pink flame coming off the sun.
“It was absolutely one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen,” Carlson said. “Worth the drive from South Dakota.”
CHESTER, Ill. — By around 10:30 a.m., the southbound lane of the two-lane highway into town was an uninterrupted line of cars. Some had license plates from Kansas, Minnesota and other faraway places.
Debbie Brooks for three decades has been the proprietor of Spinach Can Collectibles, a shop that sells memorabilia and serves as a tiny museum of Popeye-related ephemera. Chester, situated along the Mississippi River and in the path of totality, is mostly known as the birthplace of the cartoonist E.C. Segar, the creator of Popeye. Brooks showed off a pair of Popeye-themed eclipse glasses.
“A lot of people are coming back from 2017, a lot of Chicago people, Wisconsin people, all over,” she said.
The town is one of the few in the country in which one could see both 2017 and 2024 eclipses. People around Chester wore turquoise shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Twice in a Lifetime.”
Many eclipse viewers gathered on the south end of town in a hilly park surrounding a drained municipal swimming pool. At around 1 p.m., the moon began to slide across the sun like a manhole cover. People began to look up, holding their small cardboard glasses to their eyes. “I can see it!” one person said. “Do you think it’s getting darker?” asked another.
A group of five students from Wash U who traveled from St. Louis laid out a blanket shortly before showtime. The friends had been planning to go to Southeast Missouri State University for a block party but were worried they would be snarled in traffic. They made the detour to Chester.
Within minutes, they abandoned the game of Uno they brought as the blazing midday light began to dim.
All at once, the sky went dark. People began to cheer across the park, but the group of young friends mostly just gasped. One said, “Oh my God!” The place where the sun had been just minutes earlier now looked like a black puncture in the sky.
“For some reason, I thought it was going to be more apocalyptic,” said Wash U student Alina Haryani, from Houston. “But it was actually so peaceful to watch and just sit with the sun.”
“I think it was nice to experience this with friends,” said Azaria Covington, another Wash U student from St. Louis. “We just decided to get together and witness the wonderful universe that we live in. And I liked experiencing it with the people I cared about.”
“Awww!” said her friends.
RED BUD, Ill. — “The more I read about it, the more I said … we gotta go. Let’s check it off our bucket list,” said Christine Donohoo, a retiree from St. Louis. She and her husband, Alex McNamara, made a last-minute decision to make the short trek from the city to Red Bud.
“It was spur of the moment, just thinking about how significant it is and a feeling that witnessing it is witnessing something bigger than ourselves.”
They ordered glasses on Amazon that were supposed to arrive Sunday morning but didn’t. Donohoo said she had heard that Warby Parker was giving out free pairs, so she got some. Upon arrival at the park, however, she realized she hadn’t needed to because various vendors were on hand to provide the special glasses.
One of the people handing out eclipse glasses was Kelton Davis, regional superintendent of schools at the Monroe-Randolph Regional Office of Education. He stood at the corner of West Market and North Oak streets midday Monday selling glasses for $5 a pair to people driving by on their way to view the eclipse.
Davis said the office ordered more than 25,000 pairs of eclipse glasses to provide to local schools with the help of two sponsors: the First National Bank of Steeleville and the Monroe County Health Department. That saved local schools “a ton of money,” he said.
Davis was selling the leftovers Monday to raise money that will be used to furnish the new therapy room and set up a community garden at the Red Brick Safe School in Red Bud, among other things. He estimated that by the end of the day, he will have raised $3,000 to $4,000 to help serve at-risk youth and their families in Monroe and Randolph counties.
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