Video: Seeing the Inner Corona During a Solar Eclipse

Scientists Nelson Reginald and Natchimuthuk Gopalswamy describe the experiment they will do during the 2016 eclipse in Indonesia.

As the moon slowly covers the face of the sun on the morning of March 9, 2016, in Indonesia, team of NASA scientists will be anxiously awaiting the start of totality – because at that moment, their countdown clock begins. They plan to take 59 several-second exposures of the sun in just over three minutes, capturing data on the innermost parts of the sun’s volatile, superhot atmosphere – a region we can only observe during total solar eclipses when the sun’s overwhelmingly bright face is completely blocked by the moon.

In partnership with Exploratorium, NASA TV will be showing a live stream of the eclipse on March 8, 2016, from 8-9 pm ET.