Double Eclipse of the Sun; Eclipse Statistics

My favorite picture so far of the recent eclipse of the Sun is the one you see with this post. Photographer Simon Tang (who gave me permission to reproduce it here) took a sequence of photos from Huron, California, recording the International Space Station crossing the face of the Sun just as the Moon was eclipsing it.

Each of the images of the Space Station is less than 1/1000th of a second long, since the Station moved across the Sun in less than a second. The image is taken in H-alpha, a specific color of light emitted by hot hydrogen atoms in the Sun's lower atmosphere. You can see the Station close up in our second image.

NASA reports impressive statistics for the Aug. 21 eclipse: 90 million page views on NASA's two websites, 40 million views of the live broadcast, 3.6 billion users on social media, and the most popular Instagram image ever -- all of a celestial event with no politics, no national or religious affiliation. It was just nature, doing its thing, predictably, reliably, spectacularly.

In our own project, 2.1 million eclipse glasses were distributed to 7,100 libraries -- all to be given away free to the public. I was one of the astronomers leading the effort, and want to thank the Moore Foundation, Google, and NASA, for supporting the program to allow public libraries to help their patrons observe the eclipse safely. If only we could come together this well about other things!

Click on the images to see them bigger.

A Special Event near San Francisco This Sunday

I would like to invite all of you who live in or near the San Francisco area to a very special event this Sunday, at the Hyatt Regency Hotel near the San Francisco Airport, in the town of Burlingame. I will be moderating an afternoon discussion with three of my favorite astronomers (all excellent public speakers.)

Our topic will be "Beyond Earth: Planets, Life, and Intelligence in the Cosmos" and we will discuss the search for planets around other stars, for life on the worlds in our own solar system, and for intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Geoff Marcy is considered the foremost planet hunter on our planet, having discovered more planets orbiting other stars than any other human being. Jill Tarter has headed the search for intelligent radio signals from ET for many years, and is the scientist whom Jody Foster was playing in the film "Contact." Chris McKay is one of the top Mars experts in the world and explores places on Earth that most resemble Mars.

The program is sponsored by the non-profit Astronomical Society of the Pacific, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. The illustrated talks and panel will go from 1:30 to 5:30 pm at the Hyatt Hotel, 1333 Bayshore Highway, Burlingame, CA 94010. It's all free and open to the public, but the sponsors hope each attendee will make a donation of $10 to help pay for the expenses at the hotel. We expect big crowds, so come a little early to get a seat.

For more information and to RSVP, go tohttp://www.astrosociety.org/universe2014

With almost 2,000 planets now known to orbit other stars, and with many stars having more than one planet (just like our Sun does), this is the time that topics that seemed like science fiction only a few years ago are becoming an exciting part of science. Hear the latest from those at the forefront of this work.

If you know people living near San Francisco who might be interested, perhaps you can help me by sending this information on to them.