Opposite page, far left: View through aircraft window of the August 

 1, 2008, solar eclipse shows the "diamond ring" effect created by 

 the irregular edge of the Moon, just before the Moon completely 

 covers the solar disk. Right: Total eclipse from 36,000 feet. Above: 

 Passengers take in views prior to the eclipse. 



Deutsche Polarflug runs a twelve-hour sightseeing flight 

 to the North Pole and back. Their flight path scheduled 

 for August 1 promised an unusual bonus: en route to the 

 Pole, it would intercept the total eclipse, and the aircraft 

 would be filled with scientists and inveterate eclipse 

 chasers. When I was invited aboard to cover this event for 

 Natural History, I readily accepted! 



Total solar eclipses are a happy accident of nature. The 

 Sun's 864, 000-mile diameter is fully 400 times larger than 

 that of our puny Moon, which is 2, 1 60 miles. But the Moon 

 also happens to be about 400 times closer to the Earth than 

 the Sun (the ratio varies a bit, as both orbits are elliptical), 

 and as a result, when the orbital planes intersect and the 

 distances align favorably, the new Moon can appear to 

 completely blot out the disk of the Sun. On such occasions, 

 the Moon is casting its dark, slender cone of shadow (called 

 the umbra) upon the Earth's surface; that shadow can sweep 

 a third of the way around the Earth in just a few hours. 

 Those who are positioned in the direct path of the umbra 

 will see the Sun's disk diminish into a crescent, while 

 beneath that spectacle, the Moons shadow will be rushing 

 toward them across the landscape. During the brief period 

 of totality, when the Sun s disk is completely obscured, they 

 will be engulfed in an eerie semidarkness, quite different 

 from the onset of darkness at the end of a sunny day. 



Self-evidently, the phenomenon differs from a total 

 lunar eclipse. That is not only because in one case the Sun 

 is obscured from our view, and in the other the Moon; 



