A moment that changed me: I saw my first total solar eclipse – and its beauty shook me to my core | Astronomy

I I have never driven with more purpose than leaving Shelby Park in Nashville. We had arrived at Davidson Street when my husband shouted, “There! It’s sunny!” I skidded into a print shop parking lot with barely any time to spare. We jumped out of the car, put on our dark glasses and watched the sun quickly disappear. It was surrounded by clouds, but a small sliver of light still shone. It was 1:27 p.m. on August 21, 2017. We had traveled from London to Tennessee to experience the Great American Eclipse, an astronomical phenomenon I had never seen before.

As an astronomer of Italian descent, I have always felt a bit at a disadvantage. I have a PhD in astrophysics, focusing on collisions between galaxies. I have seen many celestial phenomena – comets, planetary alignments, fireballs, galaxies, aurora borealis – but not a total solar eclipse.

Moving to the United Kingdom in 2007, I’ve heard so many stories about the total solar eclipse of 1999. I hadn’t witnessed it myself, because it wasn’t visible from Italy. Several friends mentioned going to Cornwall or crossing the Channel to France to get a glimpse of this once-in-a-century event. The UK won’t have another until September 23, 2090. I felt cheated by geographical destiny.

For the next 18 years, I researched partial solar eclipses, figuring the difference between 90% coverage and totality couldn’t be that big. It turns out the difference is vast.

That morning in 2017, the sky was clear. We found a park on top of a hill and perched there, ready for the lunch show. We regularly check the sun using a small solar telescope while wearing our eclipse glasses. It’s extremely dangerous to look at the sun without them: you don’t want to ruin your view by catching a quick glimpse of our star.

As often happens when I set up my telescope in a public space, people rush towards it. Many gathered to watch the spectacle, all speaking of the wonders of the universe and the impending eclipse. I knew the theory, but I wasn’t ready for the experiment.

Finally, just before noon, we saw the moon slowly crossing the face of the sun. Then, a few minutes before totality, the worst happened: clouds. Lots of clouds rolling in all directions. We knew we couldn’t stay put: if we wanted to see the eclipse, we had to move to where the sun was shining. We jumped in the car and chased the last rays back to the parking lot.

At the moment of totality, the world around you changes completely. As the moon covers the sun, you are plunged into a singular twilight. The outermost layer of the solar atmosphere, the corona, usually invisible to the naked eye, becomes apparent. We only had about 50 seconds of eclipse before a cloud blocked it, but its beauty shook me to my core.

Everything became quiet as the birds settled down and fell silent, believing that night was imminent. My husband and I found ourselves moved to tears. I expected to witness a rare astronomical event, but I gained a new appreciation for the incredible coincidences that make eclipses possible. We live on a planet where the apparent sizes of the Moon and the Sun are the same, so one can cover the other in the sky. You don’t understand that on Mars!

I understood in that moment why solar eclipses were often considered omens or auspicious signs from the gods, and why astronomers had long sought to predict these events: there was power in that knowledge. Suddenly I felt that seeing just one wasn’t enough; I had to experiment more.

In April 2024, my husband and I went to Mexico to witness the Second Great American Eclipse. On a beach in Mazatlán, we saw the moon cover the sun for more than four minutes. This was very different from 2017 because the sun was at the peak of its solar cycle, so the corona was more wispy. The laughter and joyous chatter of the tens of thousands of people gathered to watch immediately turned into a deep, almost religious silence as the sun turned black. Once again, we felt an immense sense of appreciation for our extraordinary universe.

I now describe myself as an “eclipse chaser.” I have already booked trips to Spain for the total eclipses of August 12, 2026 and August 2, 2027. The latter will be the longest eclipse of the rest of the century, with a total duration of over six minutes due to excellent alignment between the Earth, Moon and Sun – so long that one could almost tire of it… but I know that, for me, this cosmic phenomenon will remain endlessly fascinating.

Invisible Rainbows by Alfredo Carpineti comes out on the 21st May (Wilton Square Books, £16.99) To support the Guardian, order your copy from Guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.