EAGLE PASS, Texas (Border Report) — Eagle Pass, Texas, on the U.S.-Mexico border, will be the first in the nation to experience total darkness during the solar eclipse. Thousands have gathered in the border town, where officials are hosting viewing parties.
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Check out these cool T-shirts from Eagle Pass, Texas.
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Maria Kazachenko is a solar scientist and professor from the University of Colorado in Boulder and the National Solar Observatory. Originally from Russia, she says she saw a total eclipse 20 years ago “and I feel like this is my chance to share my joy and return it to the community of the solar eclipses.”
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NASA scientist Mitzi Adams is a solar science expert who came from the agency’s Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Ala.
“We have some experiments we’re running here,” she said. The experiments have to do with the corona and also actually the shape of the sun. We usually think of it being spherical but we don’t know exactly the shape and so we’re going to try to figure that out through this solar eclipse.”
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Rachel Harper, 22, is a geology major at Texas A&M who wants to go on to graduate school for astronomy and corona science.
She came with her father Mitchel Harper and his wife, Qing Harper, from Dallas, to view Monday’s event. Rachel says her grandparents live in Eagle Pass and they wanted to watch it here “because it’s a lot more peaceful here.”
She says she is happy so many are interested in science. “Whenever you have such a big event like this that draws so many crowds it is the perfect opportunity to educate the public on our planet and the universe around us.”
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