Bill Nye is coming to Texas.
The Science Guy, known for his popular show during the 90s, will be at the Planetary Society’s Eclipse-O-Rama in Fredericksburg during the total solar eclipse on April 8.
The science educator, comedian and best-selling author joined the Texas Standard to talk about the total eclipse, climate change and even his outfits. Listen to the interview above or read transcript below.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: Well, I imagine this will not be your first total solar eclipse. Can you tell us about any experiences that stick in your memory?
Bill Nye: I was in Nebraska in 2017, which wasn’t that long ago, and it was spectacular. I was in South Africa for an eclipse, where it was very cloudy up to the last moment, and it’s still cool – but it’s way cooler when there are no clouds.
So everybody, if you’ve not seen a total solar eclipse, I cannot say enough good things. “Well, what if I see the partial eclipse? What if I decide I’ll just stay in Tulsa or Brownsville or something?” Take your time, take the day, whatever it is, and drive an hour, an hour and a half and get under the path of totality. Because it is amazing.
You know, we had the Ring of Fire cross over a big swath of Texas, too, and it’s amazing how much it didn’t get dark.
Exactly. The ring of fire was the annular eclipse; annulus means “ring” in Latin. So, that was because you had a ring around the moon, a very bright sunlight, because the moon’s orbit isn’t quite round; it’s elliptical.
And so to get a total solar eclipse, you have to have the convergence of the moon passing between you and the sun. You have to be somewhere on the Earth’s surface where that’s happening, and then the moon has to be in the part of its orbit where it’s closer to Earth. It’s a difference of like 40,000 kilometers, which in outer space isn’t much, but it’s a lot.
We don’t know of any other planet in the solar system or in the cosmos where the moon blocks – and there’s just a fabulous geometry word, subtends – the moon subtends the same width of sky as the sun.
Most places that we can tell, all the moons are much smaller and they don’t block the sun out this way. So Earth is amazing in that way. So what’ll happen? You guys have heard the story. The birds will chirp, the crickets will tweet – or they’ll crick, whatever they do.
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And then, the other strange and amazing thing: So you have the eclipse glasses on to the last moment you’re watching … and then the world goes dark. You can take your eclipse glasses off, look around, listen to the sounds, and there’ll be a breeze because the ground gets cooled off so fast that the cool air will squeeze the warm air up and you’ll get a little bit of a breeze, and just for those four minutes; it’s amazing.
So, it’s an exciting time. The next one, you guys, isn’t till 2044. So I hope to be around for that one; I’m of a certain age, who knows? Total solar eclipses happen all the time, every year and a half or so. But what makes this one important is it’s happening over a place where we live.
You know, there are people who just get on ships – most solar eclipses occur in the middle of the ocean because most of the Earth is covered with water – and they chase the eclipses, and it’s big fun. There are people who get in airplanes and chase them around, and that’s cool.
But, what’s really great is when you have this shared experience out there with thousands of your fellow citizens soaking up the dark.