 How can total darkness be what helps us see typically hidden structures in our brightest star? We talk with NCAR scientists, Dr. Paul Bryant, to learn more about total solar eclipses. I try to understand why the Sun behaves the way it does, and in particular how it affects life on Earth. Can you tell us a little bit about the structure of the Sun? Unlike the Earth, the interior of the Sun is not solid, and then there's a fight between gravity, holding everything together, and pressure pushing things out. That energy that is generated in the center of the Sun does eventually make it to the surface and then reaches what we call the photosphere. That's what you'll see with your eyes if you look at the Sun, which you shouldn't do. Then we transition into a region that we call the chromosphere, and finally the corona, which is the outer nebulous part of the Sun's atmosphere. Because we can't look at the Sun directly, and the corona is so dim. How do scientists study the Sun? Well, the corona is not actually that dim, it's about as bright as a full moon. The problem is that the surface of the Sun is about a million times brighter than the corona. There are several ways we can observe the corona. In addition to being much dimmer than the surface of the Sun, the corona is also hotter. And that means that it emits strongly in ultraviolet wavelengths. The problem from a scientist's point of view is that we can't see those wavelengths from the Earth. We need to go to space. If we want to observe the Sun from the ground, the way we usually do that is to employ something called a coronagraph. The Sun is still bright, so that light always gets into your telescope somehow. But a solar eclipse allows us a chance to do a natural coronagraph, where you now have the moon to just cover the Sun. So then, the very bright surface of the Sun is blocked out, and we can now see the corona. Can you share with us some of the photos you have taken of the solar corona? Yes, that's what my office. Let's go. Here at NCAR, we've been observing eclipses for decades. You can see over different years the structure of the corona. It looks very different, right? Sometimes it can be kind of simple. Other times there can be a lot going on. That can tell us about what's going on in the corona and what eventually leads to eruptions that we're trying to predict. What type of data processing do you have to do? That depends on the exact experiment we're running. In 2017, for instance, we deployed some instrumentation on an aircraft that chased the path of the eclipse. Because that camera was on an aircraft, it wasn't steady, right? So you can see the movie on the left here shows the jitter from the aircraft. So we do data processing to get as steady as the image. And why is it important to study the corona? Flares, coronal mass ejections, other explosive events from the Sun affect the Earth. The majority of the dynamics that happens is higher in the atmosphere in the corona. So to be able to understand why these events happen and to predict them, we need to observe that region and that's the corona. Total solar eclipses are a de-class natural phenomena that we can't experience. But what is your experience with total solar eclipses? There is a difference between a partial eclipse and a total solar eclipse that is literally night and day. There is something about that moment when the Moon completely covers the Sun, the temperature drops, it gets dark, animals start behaving strangely and it feels kind of otherworldly.