I live only a couple hours’ drive from the path of totality for this year’s eclipse, and it drives me crazy when people say that they’re staying home because “95% of the sun will be covered and that’s good enough.”

I can assure you it is not good enough. Not by a long shot. I saw totality in 2017 and, while I won’t call it “life changing,” it was definitely one of the great events of my life.

Here’s the thing: the sun is 480,000 times brighter than the full moon. When 95% of the sun is occluded — even accounting for limb darkening — it’s still over 7,000 times brighter than the moon! That’s the same brightness as an overcast day.

And because it takes about 75 minutes for totality to arrive, your pupils easily dilate to keep up with the waning light. For most of the eclipse, you can’t even tell it’s happening.

Totality, when the sun is completely covered, is over 200x darker than an overcast day. The temperature plummets. People gasp in awe. Birds stop singing. Your neck hairs stand on end. A black sun surrounded by silver radiance dominates the sky and your brain struggles to make sense of it.

In this Quick Success Data Science project, you’ll gather data to document the evolving light curve during a solar eclipse. This will make a nice STEM project for older children and will capture the dramatic change in illumination during the last few minutes before totality.

Data scientists use data every day but don’t often get a chance to “give back” by acquiring new data. To that end, this article includes links to other eclipse projects that allow you to contribute to larger data-gathering efforts in the role of “citizen scientist.”

The Light Curve Project