UTA experts to explore eclipse at Planetarium panel discussion

Tuesday, Feb 06, 2024 • Katherine Egan Bennett :

The Dallas Morning News and The University of Texas at Arlington have teamed up on a panel discussion about the upcoming total solar eclipse, in which the path of totality will travel directly across the Dallas-Fort Worth area for the first time in 400 years.

“Exploring the Eclipse: A UTA Planetarium Panel Discussion” will feature four UTA faculty members in a conversation moderated by Adithi Ramakrishnan, a science reporting fellow at The Dallas Morning News. The discussion, which is free and open to the public, is scheduled for 5 p.m. on Feb. 19 at the UTA Planetarium, 700 Planetarium Place, on the UTA campus.

Space is limited. To obtain a seat to the event, RSVP at the UTA Planetarium website. Full coverage of the eclipse is available on The Dallas Morning News’ website.

On April 8, a total solar eclipse will cross North America, passing over Mexico, the United States, and Canada. The path of the “totality” (when the moon completely blocks out the sun) will travel directly across North Texas, making Dallas-Fort Worth area the largest metro area in the nation to see this once-in-a-lifetime event. The partial eclipse will start at 12:23 p.m. and end at 3:02 p.m., with the totality starting at 1:40 p.m. and ending at 1:44 p.m.

The wide-ranging discussion is expected to address everything from eye safety to potential disruption of telecommunication services, to how ancient civilizations viewed and responded to eclipses. The UTA panelists are:

• Kimberly Breuer, associate professor of instruction in history, specializing in the history of science and technology. Her current research focuses on UT Arlington’s celestial map collection, exploring changing cultural and scientific representations on the maps in relation to changing societal and scientific views of the heavens from the late medieval period through the Scientific Revolution/Enlightenment (15th to 18th centuries).
• Erin Carlson, a clinical professor in the College of Nursing and Health Innovation where she is the founding director of graduate public health programs. In addition to her administrative roles, she teaches public health courses in epidemiology and global health and conducts funded research in evaluation of community-based disease prevention programs.
• Yue Deng, a distinguished professor of space physics in the Department of Physics. Her research interests include global 3D modeling of the upper atmosphere and space weather prediction. Deng is the core developer of the first global non-hydrostatic model in the upper atmosphere and the inter-disciplinary scientist for the NASA Geospace Dynamics Constellation (GDC) satellite mission.
• Levent Gurdemir, director of the planetarium, and an author of many peer-reviewed articles on astronomy. He is also a member of the International Planetarium Society.

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