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National parks from California to New Mexico will offer some of the best eclipse-viewing opportunities on May 20 when the first solar eclipse viewable in the U.S. in the last 18 years darkens the sky before sunset.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will be spectacular,\u201d said National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis. \u201cThere are 33 national parks positioned for a great view of the eclipse and six parks – Redwoods National Park and Lassen Volcanic National Park, both in California; Zion National Park in Utah, Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona and Chaco Culture National Historical Park and Petroglyph National Monument, both in New Mexico \u2013 are at the center of the eclipse path.<\/p>\n
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In addition to eclipse viewing, national park rangers and astronomers from the National Park Service, local astronomy clubs and NASA will converge on several national parks with programs and hands-on eclipse activities for park visitors.<\/p>\n
Astronomers like Dr. Tyler Nordgren, who is also a National Park Service volunteer, call this eclipse \u201cannular.\u201d At its peak, the eclipse will resemble a bulls-eye, with a thin ring of the sun visible around the Moon. The Moon would need to be closer to Earth for a total eclipse, which blocks out the sun completely and casts a large shadow upon Earth.<\/p>\n
Because the Sun won\u2019t be completely blocked, it is essential for viewers to use special solar glasses or other protection to view this event.<\/p>\n
Weather permitting of course, visitors at the 33 national parks along the eclipse path will get the full effect: the disc of the moon within the disc of the Sun.<\/p>\n
Another 125 national parks, most of them west of the Mississippi River and including national parks in Alaska, will offer a partial eclipse view. \u201cThink of Pac Man taking a bite out of the sun,\u201d Jarvis said describing the partial eclipse. \u201cThat \u2018bite\u2019 will take out 55 to 80 percent of the disc of the sun depending on where you are and that\u2019s still a very special experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nordgren said, \u201cEven though we won\u2019t have a total eclipse, the moon will be in position to block out 96 percent of the sun\u2019s light at the eclipse maximum, leaving what we call a \u2018ring of fire\u2019 around the disc of the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chad Moore leads the National Park Service astronomy corps. \u201cWhether during the day or night, national parks are great places to enjoy the motions of the cosmos and take in the latest sky show. Our rangers encourage visitors to spend time beneath the sky and ponder those really big questions about the universe and our place therein.\u201d<\/p>\n
Please visit\u00a0www.nature.nps.gov\/features\/eclipse<\/a> for the latest eclipse information that includes safety tips, maps of the eclipse path and national parks, a complete list of national parks where the eclipse will be visible as well as the national parks that will feature public programs about the eclipse.<\/p>\n www.nps.gov<\/a><\/p>\n About the National Park Service. More than 20,000 National Park Service employees care for America’s 397 national parks and work with communities across the nation to help preserve local history and create close-to-home recreational opportunities. Learn more at\u00a0www.nps.gov<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" National parks from California to New Mexico will offer some of the best eclipse-viewing opportunities on May 20<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9009],"tags":[9542,9600],"class_list":["post-4455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news","tag-national-parks","tag-solar-eclipse"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.openairlife.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}