[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
THE GREAT AMERICAN ECLIPSE:
TO TOTALITY AND BEYOND
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY &
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SPACE
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 28, 2017
__________
Serial No. 115-28
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
27-175 PDF WASHINGTON : 2017
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
DANA ROHRABACHER, California ZOE LOFGREN, California
MO BROOKS, Alabama DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
BILL POSEY, Florida ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky AMI BERA, California
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
RANDY K. WEBER, Texas MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
BRIAN BABIN, Texas JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia JERRY MCNERNEY, California
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana PAUL TONKO, New York
DRAIN LaHOOD, Illinois BILL FOSTER, Illinois
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida MARK TAKANO, California
JIM BANKS, Indiana COLLEEN HANABUSA, Hawaii
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas
NEAL P. DUNN, Florida
CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana
RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina
------
Subcommittee on Research and Technology
HON. BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia, Chair
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
DARIN LaHOOD, Illinois SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana AMI BERA, California
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
JIM BANKS, Indiana EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
ROGER W. MARSHALL, Kansas
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
------
Subcommittee on Space
HON. BRIAN BABIN, Texas, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California AMI BERA, California, Ranking
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma Member
MO BROOKS, Alabama ZOE LOFGREN, California
BILL POSEY, Florida DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma MARC A. VEASEY, Texas
STEPHEN KNIGHT, California DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida BILL FOSTER, Illinois
JIM BANKS, Indiana EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona
NEAL P. DUNN, Florida
CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
September 28, 2017
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Barbara Comstock, Chairwoman,
Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 4
Written Statement............................................ 5
Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Member,
Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science,
Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives........... 7
Written Statement............................................ 8
Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 10
Written Statement............................................ 11
Statement by Representative Brian Babin, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Space, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 13
Written Statement............................................ 14
Witnesses:
Dr. James Ulvestad, Assistant Director (Acting), Directorate for
Mathematical & Physical Sciences, National Science Foundation
Oral Statement............................................... 17
Written Statement............................................ 19
Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator, Science Mission
Directorate, NASA
Oral Statement............................................... 25
Written Statement............................................ 27
Dr. Heidi Hammel, Executive Vice President, Association of
Universities for Research in Astronomy
Oral Statement............................................... 32
Written Statement............................................ 34
Dr. Matthew Penn, Astronomer, National Solar Observatory
Oral Statement............................................... 41
Written Statement............................................ 43
Ms. Michelle Nichols-Yehling, Director of Public Observing, Adler
Planetarium
Oral Statement............................................... 55
Written Statement............................................ 57
Discussion....................................................... 60
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. James Ulvestad, Assistant Director (Acting), Directorate for
Mathematical & Physical Sciences, National Science Foundation.. 74
Dr. Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator, Science Mission
Directorate, NASA.............................................. 76
Dr. Heidi Hammel, Executive Vice President, Association of
Universities for Research in Astronomy......................... 78
Dr. Matthew Penn, Astronomer, National Solar Observatory......... 80
Ms. Michelle Nichols-Yehling, Director of Public Observing, Adler
Planetarium.................................................... 82
Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record
Statement submitted by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking
Member, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 86
Statement submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 87
Report submitted by Representative Bill Foster, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 88
Statement submitted by Representative Elizabeth Esty, Committee
on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of
Representatives................................................ 99
THE GREAT AMERICAN ECLIPSE:.
TO TOTALITY AND BEYOND
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Thursday, September 28, 2017
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Research and Technology and
Subcommittee on Space
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittees met, pursuant to other business, at 9:22
a.m., in Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon.
Barbara Comstock [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Research
and Technology] presiding.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. The Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology will come to order.
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare
recesses of the Committee at any time.
Good morning, and welcome to today's hearing titled ``The
Great American Eclipse: To Totality and Beyond.'' I recognize
myself for an opening statement, but I am going to submit most
of my prepared statement for the record. We need to finish the
hearing before votes are called around 10:30 a.m., so our
apologies for truncating things here.
We know we will be inspired by our witnesses today, and
harnessing the enthusiasm for the eclipse that we saw when
people really came together. I know my husband was with his
cereal box doing that, and he's a math teacher, so he was very
excited. So we're excited to see, you know, this whole
generation of students who are interested in this and would
like to now translate that into STEM careers. We're excited to
hear from our witnesses today. I'm going to shorten up and
submit my statement for the record.
[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Comstock follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. And Then I am going to now recognize
the Ranking Member, the gentleman from California, Mr. Bera,
for his opening statement.
Mr. Bera. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
You know, the eclipse was absolutely exciting, right? On
August 21st, you know, I went to the Powerhouse Science Center
in Sacramento, and what was great about it was the number of
kids that were out there with their glasses, and the number of
amateur astronomers that were out there. You know, that reminds
me of the excitement, you know, growing up with the Apollo
program and the excitement, and the generation of scientists
that that spawned and, you know, encourage folks to go into
science.
You know, we were out at Goddard, you know, with my staff
visiting with one of the helio scientists out there, and they
were talking about the Parker Solar Probe, and you know, she's
probably--I can't remember the scientist's name but she was one
of the most enthusiastic people that I've seen, so if we can
have more of this enthusiasm, this excitement, it's going to
generate a generation of kids wanting to go into science.
So I'm going to keep my comments short there, and I will
yield back, and I'm excited to hear what you guys have to say.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bera follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. Great. And I now recognize the
Chairman of the full Committee for a statement, Mr. Smith.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
In August, millions of Americans turned their eyes to the
sky to witness a rare event: a solar eclipse. The Great
American Eclipse was a profound experience for anyone fortunate
enough to be in the path of totality, and exciting even for
those of us who witnessed a partial eclipse.
An eclipse is a sight that has inspired previous
generations, and one that I hope will inspire a whole new group
of young people to study the universe and beyond. It was an
1878 American eclipse that inspired a young inventor named
Thomas Edison. Edison took a trip to Wyoming to view the total
eclipse and attempt an experiment to measure the sun's corona,
or outer atmosphere. The experiment failed, but allegedly
inspired him to think about the principles of light and
transmission of power. The very next year he invented the
incandescent electric light bulb.
Who knows what discoveries this year's eclipse will
inspire, but we do know it has already rejuvenated an
enthusiasm for astronomy, astrophysics and astrobiology. Thanks
to the good work of NASA, NSF and their partners, that
enthusiasm was converted into viewing parties, STEM education
lessons, and citizen science that engaged millions of
Americans.
We have the privilege today of hearing from a panel of
witnesses who helped make the day a success for both science
and education. I thank our witnesses, and look forward to
seeing their incredible photos and videos, learning what
scientific discoveries may come from experiments conducted
during the eclipse, and hearing what's next for solar science.
It is human nature to seek out the unknown and to discover
more about the universe around us. We have an extraordinary
opportunity to turn enthusiasm for the Great American Eclipse
into a renewal for American physics and astronomy that lasts
far beyond the two minutes of totality.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, and I now recognize the
Chairman of the Space Subcommittee, Dr. Babin, for an opening
statement.
Mr. Babin. Thank you very much, Madam Chairwoman.
I want to start by thanking our colleagues and also our
witnesses that have come forth on this very, very interesting
hearing.
Something that struck me about this eclipse is the level of
excitement that it generated all across the United States. The
eclipse was something that that really brought us all together
in our inspiration and awe.
I'd like to also add that NASA's web traffic during the
eclipse skyrocketed. It peaked at seven times higher than its
previous record. The eclipse's online viewing audience compared
with the audience for the Super Bowl, and even Netflix lost ten
percent of the day's viewership to the eclipse. And schools
across the country incorporated the eclipse into teaching
programs, and there's no telling how the eclipse sparked the
imagination of our school kids and captured their fascination
and I thoroughly enjoyed myself showing and explaining to our
schoolchildren in some parts of my district during that time
including my own grandchildren, the little cereal boxes that
our Chairwoman had just talked about that we had made, their
solar viewer projectors I think is what their real name is. But
it was one of those rare wonderful events that was as exciting
to the scientific community as it was the man the street. It
was an inspiration to our youth and it brings to mind an
interesting comparison. In a way, the 2017 solar eclipse was
almost like a space mission that was brought into our own
backyards.
I am excited about the upcoming 2024 eclipse, which, in my
opinion, could even be more impressive and awe-inspiring, not
the least because the path of totality for the eclipse travels
right across my home State of Texas.
I want to thank you all for your testimony looking forward
to it, and I yield back, Madam Chair.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Babin follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you.
And I will now introduce our witnesses.
Our first witness today is Dr. James Ulvestad, Acting
Assistant Director of the Directorate for Mathematical and
Physical Sciences at the National Science Foundation. Prior to
the NSF, he was Assistant Director of the National Radio
Astronomy Observatory, where he oversaw the Very Long Array and
Very Long Baseline Array radio telescopes. He has also served
in various capacities at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He
received his bachelor of arts degree in astronomy from the
University of California at Los Angeles and his Ph.D. in
astronomy from the University of Maryland.
Our second witness today is Dr. Thomas--I'm going to let
you----
Dr. Zurbuchen. Zurbuchen.
Chairwoman Comstock. Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator of
the Science Mission Directorate at NASA. He previously served
as a Professor of Space Science and Aerospace Engineering at
the University of Michigan. He has worked on several NASA
science missions including Ulysses, the MESSENGER spacecraft to
Mercury, and the Advanced Composition Explorer. He earned both
his master's of science degree and his Ph.D. in physics from
the University of Bern in Switzerland.
Our third witness today is Dr. Heidi Hammel, Executive Vice
President of the Association of Universities for Research in
Astronomy, a group of 44 U.S. universities and institutions
that operates world-class astronomical observatories including
the Space Telescope Science Institute, the National Optical
Astronomy Observatory, the National Solar Observatory, and the
Gemini Observatory. Since 2003, she has served as one of six
interdisciplinary scientists advising NASA on the science
development of the James Webb Space Telescope. Dr. Hammel
received her undergraduate degree from MIT and her Ph.D. in
physics and astronomy from the University of Hawaii.
Our fourth witness today is Dr. Matthew Penn, Astronomer at
the National Solar Observatory. He is a Principal Investigator
on the Citizens Continental Telescope Eclipse Experiment, or
Citizen CATE, and a Telescope Scientist for the McMath-Pierce
Solar Facility at Kitt Peak. Specifically, he works on the
DKIST Telescope Project under construction in Hawaii developing
infrared science and instrumental requirements. He received his
bachelor's of science degree in astronomy from Cal Tech as well
as a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Hawaii.
And our fifth witness today is Ms. Michelle Nichols-
Yehling, Director of Public Observing at the Adler Planetarium
in Chicago. While at Adler, she has developed exhibits, shows,
and programs and events for Adler guests. She also leads the
Adler's various telescope observatory and sky-observing
efforts. She earned her bachelor's of science degree in physics
and astronomy from the University of Illinois at Urbana-
Champaign and a master's of education degree in curriculum and
instruction from National St. Louis University.
And I now recognize Dr. Ulvestad for his statement and
testimony.
TESTIMONY OF DR. JAMES ULVESTAD,
ASSISTANT DIRECTOR (ACTING),
DIRECTORATE FOR MATHEMATICAL &
PHYSICAL SCIENCES,
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
Dr. Ulvestad. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking
Member Bera, Chairman Smith, Chairman Babin, Members of the
Subcommittees. I'm James Ulvestad, Acting Assistant Director
for the Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate at the
National Science Foundation. Thanks for the opportunity to
testify here today.
I want to focus my oral remarks on NSF's solar research
efforts and the large-scale outreach associated with the
eclipse. As you've all said, August 21st was an exciting day
for our citizens and scientists alike as our nation was center
stage for the 2017 total solar eclipse, the first in the
continental United States since 1979.
Scientists and spectators from around the world, including
Members of Congress from these Subcommittees--you can see
yourselves up there possibly--gathered across the country to
witness this extraordinary event. The eclipse was a total solar
eclipse where direct sunlight was blocked for over two minutes
while the moon covered the sun. It made its way from Oregon to
South Carolina, illuminating a 70-mile-wide path across 14
states. The rest of the continental United States experienced
some percentage of the partial solar eclipse during the
eclipse's 90-minute traverse across the country.
The sun is the basis for life on Earth. Its magnetic fields
and atmosphere, specifically its corona, fuel space weather
that affects Earth's power grids and communications systems.
The sun's power is also a source of renewable energy for our
advanced civilization, and the fundamental importance of the
sun leads the National Science Foundation to sponsor a broad
array of research related to our local star.
NSF-supported scientists track the development of sun
spots, flares, and coronal mass ejections. They work to better
understand how these phenomena are associated with the sun's
magnetic field, which influences the energetic space weather
events that can wreak havoc on our technology.
During the eclipse, the high-altitude observatory of NSF's
National Center for Atmospheric Research in partnership with
the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics flew an
airborne infrared spectrometer onboard NCAR's Gulfstream V
research aircraft. This instrument collected infrared data to
probe the complex magnetic environment of the sun's corona. Of
course, there aren't results yet. As science goes, there will
be results coming out over the next year or two.
Researchers in general continue to study the behavior of
the sun to develop warnings of solar storms that may be coming
toward Earth. So the Global Oscillations Network Group of NSF's
National Solar Observatory, a network of six solar-monitoring
telescopes sited worldwide, provides full-time monitoring of
the sun and is a critical element of space weather forecasting
models.
So now let me move to the eclipse and some of the outreach
efforts. First I want to say here that any funding that the
Federal Government put into this was leveraged by a factor of a
thousand by the planetaria, the high school teachers, the
college students, the random citizens and amateur astronomers
who went out there and engaged with the public. So I really
want to thank them for that.
So one of the activities that Chairwoman Comstock already
mentioned was the citizen science project, Citizen CATE, the
Continental America Telescope Eclipse, an experiment that
included a network of 68 identical telescopes placed along the
2,500-mile path of totality operated by citizen scientists,
high school groups, and universities. NSF Director Dr. France
Cordova, who's shown on this slide, was pleased to be in
Glendo, Wyoming, which I think had a 100- or 1,000-fold
increase in population for one day, to experience the solar
eclipse and participate firsthand in Citizen CATE outreach.
You'll hear more about this from Dr. Matt Penn.
NSF also funded the American Astronomical Society program
called Solar Eclipse Across America. This included a mini
grants program that funded 31 projects in 21 states.
Now, as far as the future goes, by early 2020, NSF's Daniel
K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the new centerpiece of the National
Solar Observatory, will be complete on the summit of Haleakala
on Maui, Hawaii. It will provide researchers an unprecedented
close-up view of the solar corona without having to wait for a
solar eclipse. The enhanced understanding of the sun and the
origin of solar storms will undoubtedly contribute to better
predictions of space weather in the future.
The solar eclipse was a great opportunity for scientific
research and citizen engagement in an event that brought a
sense of wonder and curiosity to scientists and citizens alike.
The basic research conducted with DKIST, which you see here,
will revolutionize our understanding of the sun in the future.
We're looking forward to the next eclipse in 2024. There will
also be an annular eclipse in 2023 so you have a six-month-
ahead rehearsal, and we're pleased to enjoy the support of the
public in fulfilling our role.
We thank the Subcommittee members for their ongoing support
of NSF and our efforts to serve the people of the United
States.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Ulvestad follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. I now recognize Dr. Zurbuchen.
TESTIMONY OF DR. THOMAS ZURBUCHEN,
ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR,
SCIENCE MISSION DIRECTORATE, NASA
Dr. Zurbuchen. Madam Chair, Members of the Subcommittee, as
the head of NASA's Science Mission Directorate, I represent the
thousands of volunteers, partners and NASA employees who made
the 2017 eclipse the biggest media event in modern history of
NASA. I would like to describe NASA's experience with the
eclipse, highlight some of the results of our science and STEM
efforts, and discuss how important heliophysics is for NASA's
mission.
Monday, August 21st, a total solar eclipse across the
continental United States occurred for the first time in almost
a century, and I'll share with you my own vantage point, which
was at 45,000 feet over the Pacific Ocean in an aircraft
outfitted with science experiments to capture views, before,
during and after the event. It was truly breathtaking. Watch.
[Video playback]
So I was excited. You may be able to tell. I was so excited
that I mixed up the colors. It's called the diamond ring, not
the solar ring, if you want to quote that.
Well, anyway, our NASA team and scientists around the
country have been planning for this eclipse for many years, and
with me at the hearing is Dr. Alex Young right behind me, our
Project Manager, who has been a champion for the eclipse and
working with a broad NASA team for over three years. The team
focused key priorities: safety, science and citizen science
education, and public engagement. To accomplish these
priorities, we knew we couldn't do it alone. The entire agency
rallied, and each of our 10 centers led major functions and
events partnering really broadly. The eclipse was the biggest
science outreach event in modern NASA history. Working with our
partners, we engaged with citizens across 14 states, nearly
7,000 libraries, 200 museums, planetaria and science centers,
40 Challenger centers, and 20 national parks, zoos, and even
baseball stadiums. More than 50 million unique viewers watched
the TV broadcast across multiple NASA and social media
platforms, and we had 90 million page views of the NASA website
on eclipse day alone. These numbers exceed previous records by
many times over.
I talked to many people after the eclipse, and it was
really clear that not only professionals were deeply moved by
it but amateurs alike. This is truly moving. That's what NASA
science does for us every day.
Showing now our views of the solar eclipse from various
NASA assets. Eleven of them were focused on this unique event
as well as three aircrafts. In fact, when looking at the
eclipse, I could not help myself, just like the Congressman,
thinking of the Parker Solar Probe launching next year, which
will travel closer to the sun than any time we've been there
before, really making these unique observations of the extended
corona and revolutionizing our understanding of the sun, which
is really the Rosetta Stone of understanding of all stars in
the universe.
Additionally, NASA solicited experiments to take advantage
of the unique opportunities provided by the eclipse to do
science. Eleven grantees were selected, three of which are
studying the ionosphere, measuring how the sun's energy affects
this reach in this region of the outer atmosphere. ICON and
GOLD will continue to improve after the launching later on our
understanding and capability for what is happening to that
region and the edge of space.
We also want to stress citizen science, and I'm going to
let Matt talk about this. It's really valuable to have science
done, valuable science done by citizens, not just
professionals, and there's true value with this, not just here
but elsewhere.
With safety a top priority, we published protocols on our
websites and partnered with the American Astronomical Society,
NSF, and others to spread the world about eye safety. This
provided critical--proved critical when it was discovered that
uncertified solar glasses were making it into the markets. We
owe a debt of gratitude to our partners that helped us identify
and communicate which glasses were safe, and in the end, NASA,
Google and the Moore Foundation distributed over 4.3 million
glasses.
In closing, let me talk about heliophysics, or solar and
space physics, as others referred to it, that really protects
and improve life on Earth. This total solar eclipse provided a
unique opportunity of seeing the source of space weather with
our naked eye, the atmosphere of our magnetic star. This corona
impacts the Earth through the solar wind explosions on the sun,
flares and energetic particles affecting our space assets and
our technological infrastructure, and so we want to really make
these improvements better for operational use for NOAA and the
DOD.
So I too suggest that we start making plans for the next
solar eclipse in the United States on April 8, 2024. It's going
to be another great opportunity for all of us to learn about
the solar system we live in, and I really suggest you get
started with these hotel reservations. They got really
expensive for those who were latecomers.
Thank you so much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Zurbuchen follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, and I now recognize Dr.
Hammel.
TESTIMONY OF DR. HEIDI HAMMEL,
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT,
ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITIES
FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY
Dr. Hammel. Madam Chair and Members, thank you for the
opportunity to testify about the total solar eclipse.
On August 21, 2017, millions of Americans including me
witnessed the total solar eclipse, watching in wonder as our
star disappeared from the sky. At the same time, scientists
scrambled to collect as much data as possible about the sun's
faint corona.
The sun's corona is the source of solar storms. The term
``space weather'' refers to the effects of these storms on the
Earth and other planets in our solar system. We live inside the
atmosphere of an active star.
In 1859, a monster solar storm, the Carrington Event,
stunned the world. Telegraphic systems worldwide went haywire,
emitting sparks that not only shocked the telegraph operators
but actually set telegraph paper on fire. It's sobering to
imagine the catastrophic social and economic disruption of a
Carrington-like storm on today's infrastructure including GPS
satellites, electricity grids, and communications satellites,
and that is why understanding the sun and space weather are
critical national imperatives.
Eclipses offer one of the best opportunities to study the
sun's active corona but eclipses are rare. To study the corona
without an eclipse, the National Solar Observatory, or NSO, is
building the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, DKIST, for the
NSF. When completed in 2020, DKIST will be the world's most
powerful solar telescope. Its 4-meter mirror will yield
exquisite spectropolarimetric observations of the sun's corona
and magnetic field.
But let me return to the 2017 total solar eclipse because
it too was a unique opportunity to advance solar science and
public engagement. NSO began preparing more than five years
ago, focusing their efforts on science and safety. Claire
Raftery, who is here with us today, and her team developed a
social media campaign with a variety of content including
monthly webcasts that focused both on science and on
educational engagement, and on eclipse day, NSO participated in
two major solar outreach events. The first, that you heard
about, was in Glendo, Wyoming. It culminated years of effort to
prepare this tiny community of 200 people for this event, and
the local sheriff's office estimated that 180,000 people
descended on tiny Glendo, Wyoming, including, as you saw, the
Director of NSF, Dr. France Cordova. The second event, in
Salem, Oregon, focused on high school students. NSO, in
partnership with other groups, trained a dozen students, all of
whom are minorities that are under-represented in the STEM
fields, to be ambassadors for science, and on eclipse day, the
students led the programs for the community.
Looking to the future, as you heard, another total solar
eclipse will sweep the country from Texas to Maine, and we are
already preparing. We plan to engage with students in under-
represented demographic groups well in advance of the 2024
eclipse to prepare a new set of students to be community
leaders and science ambassadors.
And finally, my colleague here, Matt Penn, developed an
ambitious eclipse program to combine public engagement with
science, and I'd like to share a video about several young
people in Dr. Penn's Citizen CATE program.
[Video playback]
This eclipse changed their lives, and their citizen CATE
observations may improve our lives. These young people helped
us gather the largest volume of science quality eclipse data
ever recorded, and I will now turn the microphone over to Dr.
Penn to describe his program.
On behalf of AURA and NSO, I appreciate your attention, and
I'd be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Hammel follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you.
I now recognize Dr. Penn.
TESTIMONY OF DR. MATTHEW PENN,
ASTRONOMER, NATIONAL SOLAR OBSERVATORY
Dr. Penn. Madam Chair and Members of the Subcommittees,
thank you for the invitation to speak to you about the Citizen
CATE experiment.
While Reva Dusette was crying tears of joy in Wyoming, Jack
Erickson and his students from Cienega High School in Vail,
Arizona, were close to tears but for a completely different
reason. If I could have my first slide?
[Slide]
It was raining at their city in Pawnee City, Nebraska. Jack
and his students were really eager to collect data. They had
practiced for months, and along the way they had spoken with
many newspaper and radio and TV reporters about the program.
This media coverage followed many of our CATE teams across the
Nation. Local TV affiliates would find their CATE students from
our 27 university and 22 high school partners and do stories on
them, and these students would get recognized not for scoring a
touchdown in a football game but for doing a STEM project and
observing the sun.
My colleagues at NASA do an excellent job of observing the
solar corona, but even their advanced instrumentation has a gap
in our understanding. If I could have the next slide?
[Slide]
A total solar eclipse opens up a window that allows us to
study the inner corona, and the Citizen CATE experiment was
designed to take advantage of that opportunity. You can see in
the flashing rectangle the Citizen CATE data fills the gap that
we currently have in our understanding of the corona.
Specifically, we're designed--we're trying to measure the
solar wind above the north and the south poles of the sun as it
moves through thin magnetic structures that we call polar
plumes. Now, just like sitting across the table from your
daughter and watching her drink a milkshake through a
transparent straw, you can measure the velocity of the
milkshake by tracking features. We can use the CATE data to
track features in the fast solar wind and measure the velocity
of the solar wind that way.
But unlike a milkshake, the fast solar wind has important
implications for space weather, and therefore it's really
critical that we understand it. So on the day of the eclipse,
the CATE teams had enormous success. Sixty-two of our 68 sites
collected images of the corona, and today I'm happy to be
joined by Miles McKay from the Space Telescope Science
Institute. On the day of the eclipse, Miles returned to his
alma mater at South Carolina State University and took data on
the 50-yard line with a CATE instrument in a stadium filled
with 5,000 cheering fans.
[Slide]
We can see in the third slide that the skies cleared for
Jack Erickson and his team. They were able to capture imagines
with their telescope. On the left you can see the corona that's
been filtered slightly to show you as--to show it as you might
see with your eye, and then on the right we see a more highly
enhanced version of that image that brings out details that you
can't see with your eye. Each of the CATE images shows the
solar atmosphere across a region that's more than a million
miles across on each side, and so from any one location where
you just have two minutes to view the corona, you don't see a
lot of changes during that short period of time, but the CATE
data set when it's combined allows us to see changes across 93
minutes of time.
[Slide]
So on the next slide, I've put together a very rough-cut
movie of the CATE data set. We collected over 45,000 imagines
of the corona on that day but in the 4 weeks, I've only been
able to process about 300 of them to show you here today. If
you imagine that the moon is a clock face, at about the seven
o'clock position, you can see a system of outflows moving away
from the sun. These are traveling at about 20,000 miles per
hour. It's pretty slow for the solar wind. And then if you look
closely at five o'clock, you can see a quicker outflow. This
is, we think, a signature of the fast solar wind in the south
pole of the sun, and that's traveling at something like 200,000
miles per hour, or perhaps faster. So even with just one
percent of the CATE data analyzed so far, we're getting a new
view of the solar corona that we haven't seen before. A lot of
science will follow.
I'd like to close by saying that a total solar eclipse is
both an uplifting and a humbling experience at the same time.
It's uplifting because it teaches us that we're smart enough to
predict when these will occur.
[Slide]
In my next slide, we can see, as my colleagues have
mentioned, that the next eclipse visible across the country,
across the United States, will occur on April 8, 2024, but if
we go further and try to figure out when is the next solar
eclipse, total solar eclipse, visible from Dallas, Texas, we
can predict that it will occur at 1:57 p.m. on Saturday, June
30th in the year 2345. So mark your calendars, please.
A total solar eclipse is also a humbling experience because
it teaches us that we have no control over the huge planetary
bodies that cause eclipses. It reminds us that we're just
little people sitting on a big rock watching the show, and it
doesn't matter what your nationality is or what your age or
your gender, a total solar eclipse is a really moving and human
experience.
So I'm looking forward to enjoying the next experience--
experiencing the next eclipse with all of you in April of 2024,
and I'm looking forward to answering any questions that you
might have as well.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Penn follows:]
Chairwoman Comstock. And now we'll hear from Ms. Nichols-
Yehling.
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
TESTIMONY OF MS. MICHELLE NICHOLS-YEHLING,
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC OBSERVING,
ADLER PLANETARIUM
Ms. Nichols-Yehling. Madam Chairwoman and Members of the
Subcommittees, thank you for this opportunity to testify.
On August 21st, 2017, millions of people across the United
States gathered. Friends, families and strangers gathered by
the hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands in public spaces.
They gathered in small groups or they found places to be alone.
No matter the size of the group, the goal was the same: look up
at the sky at an astronomical spectacle that hadn't been seen
to this degree in our country for several decades: a solar
eclipse.
Coordination and planning of efforts for public engagement
around the eclipse started several years ago. Organizations
such as the American Astronomical Society and the Astronomical
Society of the Pacific helped institutions and groups talk to
each other to see where efforts could be shared. The American
Astronomical Society and NASA served as clearinghouses of
reliable scientific content to help the media, the public, and
educators engage with the eclipse phenomenon. Universities such
as Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and the
University of Missouri in Columbia planned extensive public
opportunities at many audience engagement levels. Institutions
such as the Adler Planetarium in Chicago organized events for
those who could not travel to the path of totality but who
still wanted to enjoy the sight of the partial eclipse. These
were massive efforts that reached millions of people across the
country.
The Adler Planetarium started planning for this eclipse
three years ago. We had several goals for our programs:
increase the capacity of organizations around the Chicago area
to host their own eclipse-observing events, make residents of
Chicago, the surrounding suburbs, and those in the region aware
of what was happening and empower them with the skills and
tools to observe the eclipse themselves, serve as a trusted
source of information for the public and the media, provide
eclipse resources for those who might not otherwise have access
to them, reach traditionally underserved audiences, engage a
variety of communities and get them interested in our universe,
even if they had not been interested previously, and bring
Chicago together because this was Chicago's eclipse to share.
Our events were free and open to everyone.
In addition to our programs in Chicago and the surrounding
suburbs, we brought our Galaxy Ride outreach program to over
2,300 people in several rural communities in southern Illinois.
We were also honored to be asked by Southern Illinois
University to assist them with planning and facilitating
several of their eclipse events that garnered national and
international attention.
And what were the results these efforts? We distributed,
free of charge, over 250,000 safe eclipse viewing glasses,
including 10,000 given to schools to help students and teachers
in the Chicago area watch the eclipse during the school day.
The Chicago Public Library System and libraries throughout the
region held eclipse viewing activities at dozens of library
branches. Chicago Park District parks held eclipse viewing
events. Our partners such as the Chicago Botanic Garden, the
Morton Arboretum, Naper Settlement, and WonderWorks Children's
Museum held viewing opportunities that welcomed thousands more
participants. We empowered people who did not have solar
viewing glasses to find safe and easy ways to view the eclipse
via other means.
The Eclipse Fest block party held at the Adler Planetarium
attracted 60,000 people, which is ten times the highest number
we ever previously recorded for a sky observing event, and ten
percent of our annual attendance. The audience at that event
was a cross-section of the diverse population of Chicago,
including participants who had never interacted with the Adler
Planetarium previously. We estimate the number of people
directly impacted by all of our activities to be over a half
million.
The next logical step to ask is, ``What's next?'' How do we
leverage the momentum and excitement from this eclipse to carry
us forward? This kind of effort is what out-of-school-time
institutions like the Adler Planetarium already do. The Adler
Planetarium exists to help people become better connected with
the universe. The public interest in the eclipse allowed us to
scale our efforts upward to welcome more people. Illinois
responded to us with an enthusiasm that was staggering.
In addition to the collective inspiration provided by the
eclipse, the Adler Planetarium hopes this incredible experience
will also lead to, one, financial and programmatic support for
out-of-school-time institutions to continue providing science
activities to the public; two, support for institutions and
organizations to communicate with each other and jointly plan
and sustain small and large science programs that have a
variety of impacts; and three, support for institutions to
bring high-quality science and engaging science activities, at
low or no cost, to underserved populations in urban, suburban,
and rural locations.
We hold fast to our core belief that making science
welcoming, engaging and accessible to all helps strengthen
communities socially, culturally and economically. After all,
we share a sky above our heads, and everyone deserves the
opportunity to engage with it.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Nichols-Yehling follows:]
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you. And I now recognize myself
for questions for a five minute round.
First of all, I'd like to thank all of you for your role in
what was just an incredible sort of universal experience that
we all had. I loved watching the plane, Dr. Zurbuchen. While my
husband was with his cereal box, I really enjoyed having that
birds-eye view, and it just was fascinating how, you know, all
of the communication beforehand to get everyone participating,
to get the glasses, to do the cereal boxes, to have those large
group events. I know in my district we had the Udvar-Hazy
Center, so we were very--and there was--my daughter lived near
it. I was trying to tell her to get over there, and the backup
was--the traffic was incredible, so it was worse than the
normal traffic that we might have, but I take that as a great
sign of the engagement.
So how do we now capture this in terms of directing this
into STEM science? Because it was such a wonderful thing that
you made in a real teaching moment and how going forward can we
get people more engaged in these fields and in STEM careers?
Dr. Zurbuchen. At NASA we're committed to continuing the
discussion and continuing the engagement about science of
various types. We have really made a focus on telling the
story. Whether it's the discovery of planets elsewhere, whether
it's about science of the sun, the Earth or everything in
between, I really want to focus on that. Our STEM activities
are through a series of collaborations out of the Science
Mission Directorate that are supporting activities across the
country in a variety of centers that are focused on both
population, you know, certain groups but also on schools and
museums to carry the message forward. We do so in partnerships
with so many such as the NSF or organizations that are
represented here.
Chairwoman Comstock. And I really appreciate the comments
on the children from the Indian reservation and how you're
engaging them and the diversity of folks that you were able to
engage in this. I did want to recognize, since three of my
students--I guess two of my students from my district who were
active in doing this also. They're also two young women who are
active in my Young Women's Leadership program where we tried to
focus a lot on science, and we have Kendall and Reagan and then
Kendall's mom, Jane Marie, so thank you for bringing them here.
But maybe address a little bit about how you were able to
engage everybody in that, and so how can we make--with this
particular interest in mind, we had the Inspire Women Act that
passed earlier this year. We were trying to get more women
engaged in these fields. So maybe to our female witnesses how
we might do a little bit more of that.
Dr. Hammel. Thank you. We're fortunate in that the universe
has granted us a second go-round on this eclipse and so the
lessons that we learned from this eclipse about engaging the
young people as being the ambassadors themselves to their
communities is a fabulous way to engage young people in science
and also get them into leadership roles, and that's what will
keep young women and other people engaged in this kind of
activity. So we're going to continue the kinds of programs that
we started and I hope we can--try to expand those things as
well. As you know from your experience, having the young people
engaged, involved and being the leaders themselves, is a great
way to capture them intellectually and emotionally.
Ms. Nichols-Yehling. One of our projects that the Adler
Planetarium had was to give telescopes to some libraries and
teach teens, young people at those libraries how to use those
telescopes. One of our goals is increasing the capacity of
communities to provide their own observing opportunities, and
so this was a great test of that, but in the future, we hope to
do more of it and also work with other partners, other museums
and folks, especially those we haven't worked with before,
because this gave us an opportunity to reach other audiences.
So reaching teens, reaching young folks, reaching other
partners will be important to us, especially going into 2024.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you, and thank all of you again.
It really was an incredible, all the work that you did, and we
can't thank you enough, and I think we've harnessed a lot of
that enthusiasm going forward for STEM. Thanks.
And I now recognize Mr. Lipinski for five minutes.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. I hate to admit it, but
unfortunately, I was not in the country the day of the eclipse,
and I had a neighbor who was telling me his plans about driving
down from Chicago to close to St. Louis, and they were going
to--waiting for the morning, the weather forecast. They knew
where they could go, where they could see it, and when he came
back, it was just something that raised that excitement, and I
remember from my own childhood, and it wasn't even anything
like this, a total eclipse. I remember that. So it's a great
opportunity and it's especially great to know that it's not too
long we're going to have that opportunity again.
So I wanted to sort of ask Ms. Nichols-Yehling about ways
that you're going to use this, the Adler Planetarium is going
to sort of try to use this to leverage interest in other of
your outreach activities and longer-term public engagement in
science because you captured a lot of attention here, a lot of
people's interest, and how do you sort of keep that going and
also give the--make sure people are aware of and draw people
into other opportunities and other things that they can learn.
Ms. Nichols-Yehling. Exactly. This is basically what the
Adler Planetarium does and what we're really proud to do. The
goal in the future, we want to not only reach people broadly
but we want to reach them in depth, and so we have several
programs, especially those in our teen programs area, that
really try to hook teens but get them involved in real science,
and that's one of the goals is not just have people come out
and enjoy the eclipse for one day, give them other
opportunities to come back to the planetarium and also explore
other resources in their community to be able to go in more
depth.
And so one example is our High Altitude Ballooning program
called Far Horizons, and so we have ways for kids to be
involved in that, taking real science data, and have teens
involved in potentially recovering pieces of meteorite from the
floors of Lake Michigan. And so these are ways that we can
really reach people, not just broadly but try to really focus
on the fact that science is best engaged when it's real.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. And anyone else on--any they're
working on in that regard?
Dr. Penn. If I could just interrupt, we designed the
funding for the CATE instrument so that the groups keep their
telescopes the day after the eclipse, and so now we have a
small network of 68 groups that have their telescopes, and we
have a working group that's looking at following up with
nighttime projects so the students who were really excited by
the eclipse and are now really excited as well about STEM can
continue observing with their CATE instrumentation.
Mr. Lipinski. Very good. Anyone else have anything to add?
So what have we--anything that we've learned, you expect to
learn getting more sort of beyond the public engagement about
the--potentially about solar storms, threat of space weather?
What are the expectations from the data that was collected from
the eclipse?
Dr. Zurbuchen. So one of the most important elements--you
know, there's many but one of the most important elements for
NASA is that we were able to use this unique view to test space
weather models. So what we actually did is, we tested models
that were supported both by NSF and NASA and we ran them on the
fast computers, the fastest computers at NASA with days to
spare, and were making predictions that are now tested and
analyzed. And so it's really became a benchmark type of test of
these models that are so critical for space weather
applications.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you.
Dr. Ulvestad. If I could add to that, we, NSF, used our
Stampede 2 supercomputer for one of those activities that Dr.
Zurbuchen mentioned, but also our network of solar telescopes
around the world. We used that to help make predictions, and
those are used operationally by NOAA and the Air Force for
space weather prediction. So this gave us a chance to test the
models that we're using from those observing telescopes and see
if what they predicted was close to the truth or not, and that
will enable us then to refine the models and do better in the
future.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. My time is up, and I yield back.
Mr. Babin. [Presiding] Yes, sir. I now recognize myself.
I'm Brian Babin from the State of Texas, and I'm sitting in for
our Subcommittee Chairman, Mrs. Comstock.
I'd like to ask you, Dr. Zurbuchen, NASA is launching the
Parker Solar Probe next year to dive into the corona closer
than we've ever been to the sun before. What technological
advancements will allow that to work, and what do we hope to
learn?
Dr. Zurbuchen. So this is one of those missions that the
community wanted to do since the 1960s when it was clear that
there's a solar wind and we were trying to figure out how it
arose, right? It's now clear that that solar wind and its
storms are really affecting our technological society, and so
the technologies that are enabling the Solar Probe are really
an advanced heat shield, first of all. This thing gets really
hot at the front end and the back, you could easily sit. It's
room temperature, I mean, so in the middle is high-tech heat
shield, so that's technology number one. The second one is
high-temperature solar panels, so if you took a regular solar
panel to make solar energy out there from here it would of
course not work because it gets too hot and kind of the panel
shorts so that the panels that were developed for that
particular mission were panels that can sustain the temperature
to be down there at close solar distance and work. So those are
the enabling technologies, certainly the ones that stand out in
my mind.
What we hope to get from it is really measurements that are
focused on answering the pivotal question here, which is, how
does the sun accelerate the solar wind. We actually don't
really know the extent how--what heats the extended corona,
understanding that underlying physics not only will tell us
about space weather but about magnetic stars and channel
because we know that these effects are everywhere. So this
pivotal measurement we wanted to do for a long time. It's
finally in reach.
Mr. Babin. Thank you. Very fascinating.
Then Dr. Hammel, I'm very interested in the Carrington
Event, which I've read about, and you mentioned--I think it was
you that mentioned it earlier. How likely do you think another
catastrophic event like this will happen in the next, say,
decade? Do we have any good predictive models for this? And
then what are we currently doing? I think one big topic today
is our infrastructure, our electric grid, whether it be manmade
or some natural disastrous event like this. If you can answer
some of those questions and elaborate, I would appreciate it.
Dr. Hammel. Sure. As you heard from Dr. Zurbuchen, one of
the activities that took place during this total solar eclipse
was exercising our models, and it's our models that we rely on
to determine whether or not an event like the Carrington Event
is likely to happen in the future.
Yesterday when we were preparing for this, we had some
discussions about how likely is it because we are curious too,
and there have been some studies that have predicted that the
probability of something like this happening is something like
ten percent per decade. Not everybody agrees with that. That's
just one of the models. But when you do the math and you think
about when the Carrington Event took place and where we are
now, how many decades is that? A 10 percent probability? So
we're pretty close to maybe having another one. And in fact,
there have been in recent months some very large-scale solar
flares that have taken place. Fortunately, they have not been
directed at the Earth, and so we have escaped for now. There
are, though, of course, on record--there's evidence that solar
storms have affected things like airplane navigation systems,
other kinds of--lower-level-scale effects. So it's real. It's
going to happen sooner or later. So it's important that we are
prepared for that.
So what are we doing to prepare for that? A lot of people
are thinking about that. Every year there's meetings of people
that get together that include a lot of people who are
interested in trying to mitigate, prepare, how to set up our
infrastructure so that it is more robust, how to prepare our
satellites so that if we know an event is going to happen, what
can we do to power then down so they are not quite as severely
damaged, and I know that there are many groups in the
government who are working collaborative together, not only are
NASA and NSF representatives but NOAA, FEMA, the Air Force, all
of these groups have been talking actively about this, so it's
a subject that is on people's minds.
Do any of my colleagues want to add----
Mr. Babin. Yes, I'd like to hear anyone else has----
Dr. Ulvestad. I'll just add to the last point Heidi was
making, which is for the last three years under the National
Science and Technology Council, there's been a group called the
Space Weather Operations Research and Mitigation Task Force,
and they produced the National Space Weather Action Plan back
in late 2015. That involves, as Dr. Hammel said, NASA and NSF
but also FEMA is involved, and the Department of Energy, so
understanding how to predict solar storms and then
understanding okay, what is your response, how do the public
utilities respond, and given a certain probability of a solar
storm of a certain magnitude, what should they do. That's the
kind of question that this interagency task force is wrestling
with.
One of the things that we've been doing recently is sort of
working on establishing benchmarks for the level of solar
activity that would cause us to recommend certain actions as a
government, so I think that's ongoing. It's good to see a lot
of different agencies working together. In the course of my
normal daily life, I wouldn't interact with FEMA so I think
it's really good that we have that opportunity through this
task force.
Mr. Babin. Thank you very much.
My time is expired, but I want to say that I've been very
active with FEMA here lately too because we had Hurricane
Harvey down there, and I appreciate your testimony.
Now I'd like to recognize Ms. Bonamici.
Ms. Bonamici. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to all of our witnesses. I'm from Oregon, so this
was a very big deal in our state. The estimates were about a
million people came into the state. We only have 4 million
people living in Oregon so it was significant, really, really
important to our state, and really, it was awe-inspiring. We
had astronomers and hobbyists and families from all over the
world actually traveling to my home state. OMSI, our Oregon
Museum of Science and Industry, hosted a big event. Oregon
State University in Corvallis had thousands of people for a
viewing. They hosted exhibits, educational lectures. The
university also had research projects that they initiated on
the coast. A team of students from Lynn Benton Community
College, for example, and OSU launched a balloon from the
research vessel, the Pacific Storm, to capture live video of
the eclipse. This balloon investigated the high-altitude
temperature and pressure variations, so that was exciting. The
Ocean Observatories Initiative used in-water instruments to
study how oceanic zoo planktons responded to the darkness
caused by the eclipse an hour before the sky went dark. They
started their nighttime feeding procedure, and scientists found
actually that the ocean temperature barely moved even at
totality. Really, really amazing experience from what I
personally felt, and I was at 99 percent just in my own
neighborhood. The temperature dropped significantly, and that
was the first thing everybody could feel, a significant drop in
the temperature, and as the sky began to turn dark, we saw the
wavy lines. It was a really, really amazing, awe-inspiring
experience.
I wanted to ask you, Dr. Penn, about Citizen CATE because I
saw how many sites you had across the State of Oregon, and what
a great way to really capture so much as the eclipse moved
across the country. Can you talk about--and I read a little bit
and heard a little bit about your funding challenges along the
way. Can you talk about the importance of the federal funding
from NASA and NSF? And I know that that was a big part, but as
we set budget priorities here, it's really helpful to have yet
another example of where federal funding made a difference.
Dr. Penn. Yes. So we started out in 2016 by getting a grant
from NASA to do some student training. So Miles McKay was one
of the students. We shipped up a bunch of--or packed up--a
bunch of students with telescopes and sent them to Indonesia to
get on-the-job training during the 2016 eclipse. When they
returned we had some summer programs where they did some
research with their data, but most importantly, they ran the
workshops, the training workshops, for 2017 volunteers across
the country. So that was really critical. It not only took the
burden off of me to try to train 68 teams, they spread out and
did the training, but it empowered them to learn about solar
physics and to have the experience of the eclipse to start
with.
And then building the instrumentation funding for 2017 was
a challenge but actually looking back, I'm just amazed at the
cooperation from corporate sponsors. We had Daystar Filters
donating 60 free telescopes to us and Celestron donated 60 free
mounts. Mathworks and Color Maker were our other corporate
sponsors, major corporate sponsors. And then the National
Science Foundation was able to bring us from a site--it looked
like we were going to get about 30 sites, bring us up to the
full 68-site total. So it was a challenge but it was just a
great honor to be involved with that.
My favorite story is that Color Maker--you may not have
heard of them but they make food dye in Anaheim, California,
but the CEO is an avid amateur astronomer and he read about our
program and sponsored five sites.
Ms. Bonamici. That's a wonderful example of public-private
partnerships.
Ms. Nichols-Yehling, I know from your background at the
planetarium, you had a really important role in bringing the
experience to the public, and talk a little bit about sort of
outreach and the level of participation. How did you reach
audiences and groups of young people not typically engaged in
sort of out-of-school science activities?
Ms. Nichols-Yehling. So about three years ago, we started,
as I mentioned before, working with libraries to bring
telescopes to them, and teach folks there how to use those
telescopes, and then they were able to use them on the day of
the eclipse, and we intend to keep that program going forward
and even reach more libraries, other institutions, schools and
that sort of thing. We worked with other institutions including
a botanic garden, an arboretum, to teach their staff about
science-related to the eclipse but try to connect the eclipse
to things that would connect with their audiences such as
seeing the eclipse shadows through the leaves on trees and look
at them on the ground. So ----
Ms. Bonamici. I'm on the Education Committee as well as the
Science Committee, and I'd heard a concern that some of the
schools were planning to close because they were concerned that
they wouldn't be able to protect students' eyes. It seems like
sort of a lost opportunity. So we need to prepare ahead for the
next eclipse to make sure that this is a great and wonderful
learning opportunity for students. We'll get those glasses and
make sure that everybody knows. Because that was a real serious
concern in Oregon.
And in my remaining few seconds, I'd like to--and there
won't be enough time but to follow up on what are some of the
leading theories about, you know, one of the big outstanding
questions about the sun is why the corona is so much hotter
than the surface and what are we hoping to learn, and what are
these experiments during 2017, how are they going to advance
our understanding of the heating of the coronal area. Anybody
want to----
Dr. Penn. Yes. So the heating issue is being addressed by
several of my colleagues looking at images at different
temperatures, and they've had a short network of a few sites,
so we hope to get a handle on that. And then the acceleration
of the solar winds, another coronal problem, and the Citizen
CATE data should address that.
Ms. Bonamici. And thank you. And as I yield back, Madam
Chairman, I want to say, Chairwoman, that in 1979, February
1979, at the time of the eclipse then, an ABC news report at
that time said about the world on August 21st, 2017, ``May the
shadow of the moon fall on a world at peace,'' and may we say
that about 2024, and I yield back. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you.
And I now recognize Mr. Beyer for five minutes.
Mr. Beyer. Thank you, Madam Chair, very much.
I just have a series of short questions.
Dr. Zurbuchen, so we call this the Great American Eclipse.
What are we going to call the next one?
Dr. Zurbuchen. That's a good question. Do you have a
suggestion?
Mr. Beyer. No. It's just you have to be careful. You know,
it's like saying this is my favorite child.
Dr. Zurbuchen. Yeah, I know, I know. I worried about it
too, you know. I don't know. I mean, I don't have a good idea
at this moment.
Mr. Beyer. We can have a contest.
Dr. Zurbuchen. Yes, we should. We should.
Mr. Beyer. Dr. Ulvestad, I've always been concerned--you
know, is it just accidental--we look in the sky and the disc of
the moon looks about the same size to us as the disc of the
sun, and if you look at the nice picture we have on our things,
you figure that if the moon were bigger or smaller, that
eclipse wouldn't look the way it does. Is this accidental or is
there something bigger that's driving this like----
Dr. Ulvestad. So we live in a fortunate time in that sense,
okay? The Earth is slowing down in its rotation due to the
tidal forces from the moon, and as the Earth slows down, the
moon moves farther away. So I was actually curious about your
question myself because the moon moves away at some centimeters
per year, or something like that, and I was thinking, well,
when is the moon going to be too far away to not ever have a
total solar eclipse again, and it's hundreds of millions of
years, so we've got some time yet.
Mr. Beyer. But other than that, it's just accidental?
Dr. Ulvestad. Other than that, if you go into the theories
of anthropomorphism and why humans appeared on Earth at a
certain time, you could probably come up with something but I
don't think there's any scientific reason that the moon and the
sun happen to be the same angular size right now.
Mr. Beyer. I think we'll recommend to our Chairman and
Chairwoman that we have a hearing on the anthropomorphism
coming up. We'll invite you back.
Dr. Penn, on the Parker Solar Probe, how long will it
survive? Is this a--is it going to be going there for 2 minutes
and 48 seconds or----
Dr. Penn. No, I think it'll make several passes. I must
admit, I'm not an expert on this but I think it'll make several
orbits through the corona and gather on both.
Dr. Zurbuchen. I think it's a seven-year mission duration
but hopefully it will survive even longer. So it's cranking
down, so the first time it flies by it's closer to, you know,
Venus and then Mercury distance and then really taking the
periapsis, the close part of the ellipse, closer and closer
until it's at 9.8 solar radii. We live at 215 solar radii, just
for scale.
Mr. Beyer. Great. Thank you.
Dr. Hammel, I noticed when Dr. Zurbuchen was on the
airplane looking at the eclipse, he didn't have those classes
on. Do you not need the glasses when it's at totality or----
Dr. Hammel. I brought my glasses for this very purpose.
Actually, once totality has been achieved, you can take off the
glasses and then you have a fantastic view. You need these
glasses when any little piece of the sun is exposed. So I'm so
sorry that you only saw a 99 percent eclipse.
Ms. Bonamici. It was awesome.
Dr. Hammel. Yes, but it's even awesomer if you can get into
the path of totality. The difference between 99 percent and 100
is literally the difference between day and night. Even that
tiny little piece of the sun is a million times brighter than
the corona. So once you have that last bit disappear behind the
moon, everything changes. Everything changes. So I hope for
2024 you make that trek to the totality line. It's worth it.
Mr. Beyer. As Mark Twain said, the difference between
lightning and a lightning bug.
Dr. Hammel. Yeah. There you go.
Mr. Beyer. Dr. Hammel, though, I'm struck with the notion
that I think the testimony was, we gave our 4.3 million
glasses, but 51 percent of Americans intended to look, which
gives you 165 million. Does that mean we have 161 million
people who can expect some eye damage?
Dr. Hammel. No, not at all. We can share glasses. The
amount of the totality--the amount that leads up to totality
when you must have these glasses takes over an hour. It takes
quite a long time. And so you put the glasses on and you see
the sun sort of being chipped away by the moon but then you
take your glasses off and you hang out with your family and
your friends, and a few minutes later you put them back on
again, so there's a great deal of sharing that can go on. And
there are many other ways to experience the eclipse. As we
heard, you know, the cereal box is a fabulous way to do it as
well, and that has the advantage of teaching kids a little bit
about optics too and how a pinhole can act somewhat like a
telescope, and there's a lot of other things that--and all of
us who were involved in outreach shared many of those other
ways of enjoying the eclipse in addition to the glasses.
I think that one of the lessons that we all learned from
this eclipse is that we have to be even more rigorous about
ensuring that there are many, many millions of glasses
available in the 2024 event. I'll share my own experience. I
worked closely with a teacher in Virginia, and she was training
500 of her fellow teachers that day, the day of the eclipse,
and they had ordered their glasses from Amazon, and then when
this came about that they couldn't be sure that their glasses
were safe, she and I brainstormed on all the other ways that
the teachers could experience the eclipse. I think that we will
take the lesson to heart because in 2024, the eclipse is in
April and the schools will be in session and so we want to be
sure that everybody has the opportunity to experience the
eclipse and can experience it safety.
Chairwoman Comstock. I now recognize Mr. Veasey.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I wanted to ask just about the days leading up to the
eclipse. I know that like you were talking about, there was a
lot of confusion about the glasses, and Amazon actually issued
a recall on some of the glasses that were out there in the
marketplace, and I just wanted to know, from you, can you talk
about the efforts that your agencies made to help spread
information about the glasses? Because I think when we get
ready to have the next one, as far as the general public is
concerned, you know, we're here having this Committee hearing
today and going into, you know, great detail about the eclipse
and what it means, but in 2024 they're going to want to know
about what glasses to use again. So is there any lessons,
anything like that that you can talk about?
Dr. Ulvestad. So I'll say a couple words about that. We
funded the American Astronomical Society to create a web page
of resources, and that web page of resources had instructions
on what you should do and what you shouldn't do, and that's
fine if you know where to go to look for that web page, but I
think the lesson for that is that we need to be more aggressive
about marketing that kind of web page and that kind of
information and do more pushing out to the public rather than
waiting for people to stumble across it because it showed up on
their browser.
Ms. Nichols-Yehling. And we also as a public institution
directed people to that American Astronomical Society web page
as a very trusted source of information. We also allayed
people's fears because we got our glasses directly from one of
the trusted manufacturers. But then for those folks who were
still concerned, definitely pushing those other ways to be able
to safety view the eclipse because it wasn't necessary to
actually have a pair of glasses. There were many, many other
ways to do it that were still perfectly safe. So getting all
those messages across through our social media, through the
regular traditional media was really important in the days and
weeks leading up.
Mr. Veasey. All right. What do you think just about
lessons, you know, learned? I mean, you talked about the steps
that you guys took to make sure that you were getting them
correctly and trying to get that information out into the
public. Do you think there's something else that we can do when
the next one comes around to maybe even prepare even better?
Ms. Nichols-Yehling. I'd say get the word out even sooner
because it was really hectic right at the end, maybe the last
two or three weeks. We were just getting phone calls and emails
of people concerned every single day, but definitely working
with our partners, working with the media several months ahead
of time, that's one of the lessons we took from it.
Dr. Zurbuchen. And I just want to add, I think it's
absolutely important to recognize that not everybody is getting
their news the same way, right? Some URLs may or may not be
used. I mean, my children, if they ever see me, it's on
Instagram, which I don't know, I don't hang out there, but you
know--so basically really looking at all the communication
channels, and I think what really helped with the glasses,
frankly, is people practicing up front, you know, basically
really looking at the glasses and measuring what they blocked,
and then it was clear, hey, days ahead, right, that these
particular set of glasses were not safe and then, you know,
thank God for the companies really replacing them. So again,
really using all communication channels that are relevant and
going ahead and practicing, making sure we don't take it for
granted.
Mr. Veasey. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chairwoman Comstock. I now recognize Mr. Foster for five
minutes.
Mr. Foster. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
And I'm--well, first of all, I myself had the pleasure of
watching the eclipse with students and their families at the
Joliet Library's solar eclipse viewing party in my district,
and like our panelists and the members here, I was really
encouraged to see people from every walk of life taking an
interest in science just because of the eclipse.
But, you know, I'm a scientist so I tend to like numbers
about things, and a few weeks ago I became aware of a NASA-
funded research project led by Dr. John Miller of the
University of Michigan to actually quantify who viewed the
eclipse, how people prepared for it, gathered information for
it ahead of time, when and how they viewed it, and in the
months and weeks following how--you know, the effects that it
had on their scientific engagement and literacy. So this seemed
like it was precisely the sort of, you know, fact-based public
engagement that NASA should be engaged in, so I was thrilled to
see this report.
And I would like at this point to ask unanimous consent to
enter into the record a preliminary version of the report----
Chairwoman Comstock. Without objection.
[The information appears in Appendix II]
Mr. Foster. Thank you. By Dr. John Miller titled
``Americans and Their 2017 Solar Eclipse.''
With that out of the way, one of the things I just want to
mention about this is that one of the--just to capture one
sentence from his report, it said ``During the two months prior
to the eclipse, millions of American adults engaged in a wide
array of information-seeking and acquisition activities to
improve their understanding of the forthcoming event,'' and
trying to really understand that, and you know, I understand
that Dr. Miller has, you know, a very aggressive program of
expanding this. He's looking at things like social media and so
forth to actually quantify this, and I think I just want to--if
any of you have any specific familiarity with that, I'd be
happy to hear comments on it.
Dr. Zurbuchen. So this study was funded out of the STEM
activation parts of our Science Mission Directorate. We're
really excited about it. Of course, both coverage that, you
know, we managed to get all together, right? It's not just one
source. What I wanted to point out also is of course that a lot
of the studies are still ongoing, so I'm really glad you're
looking at this initial report but we'll make sure that we draw
your attention to the final report once it's been completed. I
really want to make sure that we look at it just like you said.
We feel it's absolutely crucial to use the tools of social
sciences, you know, to really make sure that our outreach
efforts are targeted and are also up-to-date as things are
changing as we go forward.
Mr. Foster. Well, thank you. It's always nice to see
government doing its job well.
Now, to get to a little bit of scientific things here, how
much overlap is there between preparation and mitigation for
coronal mass injection events and EMP events caused by
potential nuclear attacks? Is this now a completely separate
set of preparation and mitigation or are there enough
similarities about what you have to protect even though
obviously the time structure and intensity of the pulses are
very different?
Dr. Ulvestad. I can say a few words about that, which I've
fortunately learned from listening to my FEMA colleagues at the
Space Weather Task Force. They have lots of plans on the shelf,
and when they start thinking about what's going to be the
result of a space weather event then they go to their shelf and
they say here's the kind of thing we have that looks a lot like
a space weather event. So an EMP pulse that you just mentioned,
I imagine, is one of the things that they would say it looks
kind of like a space weather event. So within at least my
organization, within NSF, we don't engage in that activity but
I think what they do is, they take as a starting point what
they already have, rather than starting from scratch. They say
okay, what's different about a solar event from another event
that we've studied, and that means they're not starting from
square zero.
Dr. Zurbuchen. So one of the major differences between the
two events is the geographic extent of the event, and so
basically the real worry about a solar event of the type Dr.
Hammel outlined earlier is that it would be regional in nature,
and so basically what would happen in an electrical system, it
would overload as a regional type of thing so far less it's a
local thing like lightning or even a pulse of the type that
you're outlining. There are similarities relative to the
physics locally with the electrical fields going up and so
forth, how the systems react. But there's real differences
relative to the geographic event and therefore the overall
extent of the damage that could occur from it.
Mr. Foster. Of course, all nuclear EMP events are not
created equal, depending on altitude and related things.
Well, you know, it's nice--I just want to encourage you to
actually, you know, share your planning on that because, you
know, neither of the two events unfortunately are low-
probability events, and often dealing with low-probability,
high-damage events is something that in our democracy does not
do that well, and so I'm encouraged to see that you're at least
thinking about part of that problem.
Thank you, and at that point I'll yield back.
Chairwoman Comstock. Thank you. And again, I thank our
witnesses for the great experience that you provided for our
students and for people across the country, watching on the
plane, seeing all the web activity and having that all
captured, and now all the information that you have for
research going forward. It was really exciting to see this all
in action.
I believe we only have about nine minutes left to vote, so
I do thank the witnesses, and the record will remain open for
two weeks for additional written comments and written questions
from members, and the hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:36 a.m., the Subcommittees were
adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Appendix II
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Additional Material for the Record
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