A total solar eclipse, when the universe clicks into place and the world snaps into place like a cue ball, may be one of the most profound and visceral experiences you can have without ingesting anything illegal.
Some people scream, some cry. I went through this cycle of light and darkness, death and rebirth eight times, felt the light melt and saw the sun's corona spread its pale, feathery wings across the sky. And it never gets old. As you are reading this article, I am preparing to go to Dallas with my family and some old friends to see the 9th solar eclipse.
One old friend, Jay M. Passakoff, a longtime professor of astronomy at Williams College, will not be attending. I have stood in the moonlight with him three times: in Java, Indonesia, in Oregon, and on a small island off the coast of Turkey.
I was looking forward to seeing him again next week. But Jay died in late 2022, ending his half-century career as a pushy space evangelist who was more responsible than anyone for the sensational circus of science, wonder, and tourism that the eclipse ushered in. .
“We are Umbraphilus,” Dr. Pasachev wrote in the New York Times in 2010. earth and sun. ”
As the eclipse approaches, Jay slips on his lucky orange pants and joins colleagues, students (many of whom have gone on to become professional astronomers and eclipse trackers), tourists, and friends, all over the world. He led expeditions to every corner of the continent. Many who attended his outings, hoping it wouldn't rain, experienced several adrenaline-fueled minutes or even seconds of magical chases. He knew everyone, getting students tickets to remote parts of the world, often putting them to work operating cameras and other equipment, and steering them into scientific enterprises. He was the person who pulled the strings.
“Jay is probably responsible for inspiring more undergraduates to pursue careers in astronomy than anyone ever,” said Stuart Vogel, a former radio astronomer at the University of Maryland.
His death marks the end of a remarkable streak of success in the pursuit of darkness. He observed 75 solar eclipses, 36 of which were total solar eclipses. According to the Eclipse Chaser Log, Dr. Pasachev spent a total of over 1 hour, 28 minutes, and 36 seconds in the moon's shadow (he was a detail-oriented person).
“He was larger than life,” said Scott McIntosh, deputy director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, who said one of Dr. Pasachev's eclipse expedition hats hung on the wall of his office in Boulder, Colorado.
As the world prepares for the last total solar eclipse to hit the Lower 48 states within the next 20 years, it seems strange that he is not on the scene. I'm not the only one who misses him.
“He was probably the most influential person in my professional life, and his absence will be keenly felt,” said Dancyton, a solar physicist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder.
Dr. Passakoff witnessed his first solar eclipse in 1959, as a 16-year-old Harvard freshman, aboard a DC-3 chartered by his mentor, Harvard professor Donald Menzel, off the coast of New England. . He was completely hooked.
Dr. Passakoff, who graduated from Harvard University with a Ph.D., eventually enrolled at Williams College in 1972 and immediately began recruiting eclipse trackers.
Daniel Steinbring, now a professor emeritus at Oberlin College, was a freshman when he was recruited to join a solar eclipse expedition on the coast of Prince Edward Island.
The day of the solar eclipse dawned cloudy. Dr. Passakoff, with the guidance of his old mentor Dr. Menzel, hired a pilot and a small plane. He sent a young student to the airport with a fancy Nikon camera and told him to hang out of the plane's open door and photograph the eclipse.
“I had an unobstructed view of the eclipse. And you know, I was the only person in Williams who could see the eclipse,” Dr. Steinbring recalled.
A year later, in 1973, the young Steinbring found himself on the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya with Pasakoff and a team from 14 other universities, awaiting the longest total solar eclipse of the century, lasting about seven minutes. That moment changed his life, he said.
“I felt that if this is what astronomers do for a living, then I belong there,” he says.
According to his former students, Dr. Pasachev went out of his way to educate locals on how not to be afraid of solar eclipses and how to observe them safely.
Dr. Passakoff took pride in having prepared local scientific support and other contacts, equipment, lodging, and other supplies years in advance of the actual eclipse.
“Jay always had a Plan B,” says Dennis Di Cicco, longtime editor of Sky & Telescope magazine.
In 1983, Dr. Pasachev arrived in Indonesia for a solar eclipse study sponsored by the National Science Foundation. He discovers that the digital tape recorder where all the data is stored is broken.
Dr. Passakoff called his wife, Naomi, also a historian of science at Williams College, who was back home in Massachusetts. Naomi has witnessed 48 solar eclipses. She tried to order a new tape recorder, but was told that the formal paperwork required to ship the device to Java would take several days. Mr. Di Cicco was forced to work. Within 24 hours, he renewed his passport, grabbed his tape recorder and boarded a plane to Indonesia. Mr. Di Cicco arrived just the day before the eclipse.
Dr. Passakoff paid $4,000 for a round-trip ticket. The Lufthansa clerk told Mr. Di Cicco that this was the most expensive bus ticket he had ever seen.
Kevin Reardon, a Williams College graduate and now a scientist at the National Solar Observatory and the University of Colorado Boulder, said in an interview that solar eclipses are now big business, reducing the need for evangelists. he said. “Now everyone knows that solar eclipses are amazing.”
Even with powerful new solar observatories and dedicated spacecraft to observe the Sun, there's still science to be done on the ground during the eclipse, including observations of the corona that kept Jay energized.
Dr. Pasachev was proud of the fact that he almost never missed a solar eclipse, and he believed that it was thanks to the weather that it was never cloudy. He has always managed to secure the best venues, and in 2024 Mazatlan, Mexico looked the most likely.
However, he emailed me in 2021 to say that his lung cancer had spread to his brain, providing me with material for his obituary.
Still, he writes, “I have not given up on the idea of going to the Antarctic eclipse on December 4th. I have three research plans for that purpose.” He actually went and sent back an eerie photo of a ghost sun floating on an icy horizon. This was the final trip into darkness. Still, he continued to plan for the next solar eclipse.
“You know, there's an eclipse, and then there's another eclipse, and then another,” Dr. Reardon said. “He wanted to see every solar eclipse, but he didn't want to think there would be one at the end.”
April 8th will be lonely in the shade.