NASA plans to launch three rockets into the solar eclipse shadow next week. Here’s why

Parts of the US, Canada and Mexico will thrust into darkness as the Moon glides completely covering the Sun, marking a total solar eclipse on April 8.

While millions of spectators are excited, NASA engineers in Virginia plan to make the most of the few minutes of darkness by launching rockets straight into the eclipse's shadow, LiveScience reported.

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These launches have a crucial science goal besides the cool factor. They will enable the scientists to understand how the sudden drop in sunlight impacts Earth's blanket of air.

The swift transition from day to night during the eclipse causes sudden temperature drops. It also tricks animals into engaging in nighttime behaviours.

However, scientists know little about how these brief moments of darkness affect the boundary between our planet's upper and lower atmosphere, called the ionosphere. The ionosphere extends between 55 to 310 miles (90 to 500 kilometres) above the planet's surface.

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In the ionosphere, ultraviolet radiation from the Sun drives away electrons from atoms, creating electrically charged particles that puff up the upper atmosphere abundantly. During sunset, these ions recombine into neutral atoms, thinning out the charged particles. However, they are ripped away again the next morning.

"If you think of the ionosphere as a pond with some gentle ripples on it, the eclipse is like a motorboat that suddenly rips through the water," Aroh Barjatya, a professor of engineering and physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said in a 2023 NASA article. "It creates a wake immediately underneath and behind it, and then the water level momentarily goes up as it rushes back in," he added.

NASA engineers expect to gather enough data to predict such disturbances, which interfere with radio and satellite communications. They will launch three rockets from Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. The Moon will block only 81.4 per cent of the sun's light at this facility. However, the team expects to use the temporary dimming.

The same research team performed a similar experiment during last October's partial "ring of fire" solar eclipse when the Moon blocked a maximum of 90 per cent of the Sun's light.

The experiment revealed that the drop in sunlight caused disturbances capable of impacting radio and satellite communications, highlighting the need for improved capability to anticipate them.

"We are super excited to relaunch [the rockets] during the total eclipse, to see if the perturbations start at the same altitude and if their magnitude and scale remain the same," Barjatya concluded in a NASA statement.

(With inputs from agencies)