Newswise — WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., May 10, 2016—Williams College Professor Jay Pasachoff has received a grant of $25,000 from the National Geographic Society for his expedition to view the total solar eclipse of August 21, 2017. This eclipse will be the first with a path of totality to cover the continental United States from coast to coast since 1918, 99 years ago. The grant comes from the Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration.
The Williams College Eclipse Expedition will observe from Salem, Ore., from the campus of Willamette University. Drs. Jay and Naomi Pasachoff reconnoitered there for the minus-second anniversary of the eclipse, and worked together with the university’s president, an astronomer, and his staff to locate the observing sites on campus.
Pasachoff, his students and alumni from Williams College, and professional colleagues will be studying the solar corona, the Sun’s outer atmospheric layer, at the eclipse. Many Williams College students beginning even before Pasachoff’s arrival in Williamstown in 1972 have participated in eclipse expeditions, and Pasachoff intends to include many current undergraduates in the expedition, including those taking his solar-physics seminar in spring 2017. His research will also include the effect of the eclipse’s cooling of the Earth’s atmosphere in collaboration with Professor Marcos Peñaloza-Murillo, a Fulbright-sponsored visitor at Williams two years ago.
Pasachoff has received 18 previous grants from the Committee for Research and Exploration. The 2017 total solar eclipse will be the 66th solar eclipse that Pasachoff has viewed, with images and other information about many of them at http://www.totalsolareclipse.org. Pasachoff, Chair of the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group on Eclipses, also supervises the website at http://www.eclipses.info that has links to maps, cloudiness statistics, safety information, and many other articles relevant to eclipse observing.
Pasachoff is currently on sabbatical leave at the California Institute of Technology.
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Founded in 1793, Williams College is the second-oldest institution of higher learning in Massachusetts. The college’s 2,000 students are taught by a faculty noted for the quality of their teaching and research, and the achievement of academic goals includes active participation of students with faculty in their research. Students’ educational experience is enriched by the residential campus environment in Williamstown, Mass., which provides a host of opportunities for interaction with one another and with faculty beyond the classroom. Admission decisions on U.S. applicants are made regardless of a student’s financial ability, and the college provides grants and other assistance to meet the demonstrated needs of all who are admitted.
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