Three minutes 28 seconds: When The South of Mexico became the 1970 World Biggest Solar Observatory
Noel Cruz
University of Manitoba
The 7th of March 1970 total solar eclipse is recognized as the most comprehensive and integrated study of a solar eclipse in human history. Despite that fact, there is no registry of such recognition in any dedicated academic document. The importance of this total eclipse is that it occurred over densely populated areas where scientists could observe it easily. Close to five hundred astronomers and scientists from fourteen countries made a multi-million dollar investment to install solar instruments to study the solar eclipse at the lands of the South of Mexico.
They transformed indigenous villages into the largest gathering of astronomical instruments in the Earth’s northern hemisphere. In addition, studies of the eclipse effects on the Earth’s atmosphere and ionosphere and the Sun itself were executed by more than 70 rocket probes from NASA, 7 space satellites, and a plane flying to the encounter with the darkness created by the Moon. Since then, several eclipses have happened and it will keep occurring but without a global effort to study them in detail. Thanks to the conquer of space with orbiting solar observatories, efforts to build temporary ground solar observatories along a solar eclipse path are no longer required. A single cloudy day could have destroyed the history of the 1970 solar eclipse. This talk is intended to not let the history of such astronomy events be forgotten and be honored properly within the history of astronomy framework.
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