Americans shared a powerful moment during 2024 solar eclipse. This is what they saw.

The Sun’s corona, its outermost atmosphere, is typically only visible to the naked eye during a total solar eclipse. The SwRI-led Citizen Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse (CATE) 2024 project evaluated special cameras to measure the polarization of coronal light during the April 2023 total solar eclipse in Exmouth, Western Australia. In this image, the colors indicate the polarization or orientation of the light. The white features, called prominences, have no polarization.

With telescopes and tears, a nation found itself under the shadow, for a few rare minutes of celestial mystery. Read more