New York: a partial eclipse that was virtually complete | Science | EUROtoday

The moon snacked on the solar this afternoon, with shameless eagerness to scavenge the plate. The circumference of the solar was overshadowed by the photo voltaic eclipse even in New York City, the place the phenomenon was solely partial, because of its distance from the strip of complete darkness that crossed the United States from southeast to northwest. The fade to black of the sky, with very slight orange edges that modified place as if to circumscribe the absent presence of the solar, amazed the 1000’s of individuals gathered on the Great Lawn of Central Park, the esplanade that hosts concert events and different mass occasions. Although the venue was not full – simply over half capability, because it was a weekday and lots of had not but completed their chores – an anxious crowd shouted, applauded and even cheered the disappearance of the solar underneath the imposing shadow of the moon. . And then, da capo, the timid reestablishment of its edges.

Parviz, a Columbia pupil initially from Bombay, joked concerning the ulterior which means of the eclipse for a Parsi like him. “My religion honors fire, and I don't know if it will be a good omen to witness the setting of the sun, which symbolizes it,” he mentioned between half-moon smiles and really white enamel, whereas the section of solar left by the moon appeared and disappeared from the view. “However, and with how fond of astronomy we Indians are, I couldn't miss this, even though I had to miss two classes. It has been worth it, without a doubt. Then my grandmother and the family astrologer will tell me off.” More laughter.

Not distant, Emre Connors, an Iranian who lived within the Big Apple after the 1979 revolution, used related causes. “This is not just a natural phenomenon, it has a spiritual and esoteric significance, at least for me and for all of us who claim our Zoroastrian roots. But you see my grandchildren,” he said with a gesture of resignation while pointing to two noisy preteens, one hundred percent American, who were shouting and bellowing a few meters away: “For them it is pure spectacle, a scene from a TV movie or a video game. , nothing else”.

Equipped with the complete camper's kit (bikes, blankets with a waterproof bottom, since the grass showed signs of the abundant rains of last week; liters of impossible content and the mandatory protective glasses), thousands of New Yorkers, many of them foreigners judging by the babel of accents, they refused to leave the Great Lawn despite the eclipse having occurred: as if licking the edges of the plate, trickles of the sun ran around the sphere as if trying to recover from the lunar invasion and delimit their place. Bursts of applause periodically broke the serene hubbub of the masses.

But there was no need to go near Central Park, especially considering that the weather forecasts announced a cloudy and completely covered sky at three in the afternoon, the time of the eclipse. Any rooftop, even sidewalks with access to a piece of sky – something difficult in New York, the city without horizons – were enough for citizens to establish that peculiar communion with the sky. The protective glasses, distributed free of charge at stations and the city's library network since March 29, had been sold out in recent days, but everyone seemed well supplied, including the janitor of an Upper West Side estate, who , leaning out of the gate, marveled at the view. “I don't care if the neighbors call on the goal, that they wait a little, this is a historic moment and I'm not going to see it again,” mentioned Joe, the tremendous (supervisor) of a stately property.

Although in New York there is a quorum for any activity, no matter how unexpected or strange, for once Central Park was the exception, and not the rule. The green lung of the city, the agora of New Yorkers, was left today without an organized event to contemplate the partial eclipse (90%) with which the Parks Department of the City Council commemorated the anniversary. It was the only large park in the city where collective contemplation was not organized, but the love of urbanites for THEIR park more than earned official contempt.

That's why many of the locals did not join in the collective ecstasy. Simon Schumann, an Upper West Side resident and regular park walker, was walking with Raff (“with two efes”), a Maltese to whom his human had tied children's sunglasses with a ribbon. The animal nodded insistently to shake them off, but Schumann explained that, if, in addition to sniffing and humiliating the snout as his species usually does, Raff decided to look up, he wanted him to do so properly protected (he, however, was not He wore glasses). “Everyone warns us about the risks of looking at the sun without protection; I guess it's the same for animals, don't you think? Do you have more information?” He asked with interest while Raff shook his head like a demon. Impossible to take a photo: all moved.

The five events organized in parks in each of the counties were free, an exception in this city for millionaires. So was an activity guided by astronomers in the beautiful Greenwood Cemetery, in Brooklyn, which sold out the quota of passes within a minute of being distributed. Many New Yorkers attended the parties held at the city's main viewpoints, all of which had a fee, at no less than $60 per head (more, with the right to a drink); others approached Hoboken, in New Jersey, closer to the total fringe of the eclipse and, according to CNN, with more shots of the phenomenon, and the rest, in short, improvised with or without glasses when leaving work in the city without horizon

On a day that dawned sunny, and that maintained that spirit until the moon came between the world and the sun, this Monday's eclipse is the last supernatural manifestation – in the most etymological sense of the word – in a city periodically shaken by monsoon floods, skies filled with smoke from fires, haze of diverse origins and, very occasionally, earthquakes. All that remains is to wait for a plague of locusts.

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