For a handful of minutes, the skies will darken Monday in a total solar eclipse where the sun’s rays will be completely blocked by the moon’s orbit — something Hoosiers can only view with special glasses, but more on that later.

Our sister outlet, the Kansas Reflector, compiled its own , which we’ve tweaked to fit our Hoosier audience. Our Kansas neighbors aren’t in the path of totality like Indiana but provided some great context before the big event.

Wait! There’s going to be a solar eclipse?

Yes! On Monday, April 8, 2024, to be precise. Portions of the state will be completely dark for just over four minutes, as detailed by the Indiana Department of Homeland Security. While the skies will start to darken as early as 1:50 p.m., complete darkness will occur in Indianapolis between 3:06 and 3:09 before the skies lighten again at 4:23. Other parts of the state will roughly follow that same timeline but may be off by a few minutes.

What’s a solar eclipse again?

According to our : “A total solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, completely blocking the face of the Sun. The sky will darken as if it were dawn or dusk.”

Just imagine that you’re watching an important TV program and your beloved spouse passes in front of the set. They instantly become much less beloved.

Now, let’s equate your TV set with the sun and your spouse with the moon. It’s just like that.

Who will get to see it?

All of Indiana will experience some portion of the eclipse but a portion of the state will be in the “Path of Totality,” where the moon will completely block the sun. This band, stretching from Bluffton to Evansville, has attracted for the rare event.

How rare? While partial solar eclipses happen two or three times each year somewhere on earth — and there are roughly two total solar eclipses every three years — Indiana won’t experience another until .

Any advice on watching it?

Don’t look at the eclipse with your naked eyes. Let me repeat that, in italics: Don’t look at the eclipse with your naked eyes.

The sun is usually so bright that we can’t physically stand to look at it. An eclipse cuts down on the brightness, but doesn’t stop solar radiation that can cause . This happens to people. It literally scars their retinas. They see a phantom image of the sun for the rest of their lives.

But I can still sneak a peek, right?

Please don’t do that. If you don’t believe me, listen to Shannon Schmoll, the director of the Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University.

“We don’t ever, ever want to look directly at the sun. It will harm our eyes and can cause permanent damage,” she told journalists during a . “So to look at this, you need to use either eclipse glasses or some sort of eclipse viewers.”

So where do I find those solar viewers?

The American Astronomical Society of reputable manufacturers and retailers. For the record, they do not recommend going to your prominent online retailer of choice and searching for “cheap eclipse glasses.” You can do better. For goodness’ sake, think of your eyes.

Some public libraries are distributing glasses and the Department of Natural Resources has .

Could I just use a camera instead?

Nope. An unfiltered look at the eclipse will leave your fancy digital camera . You need a specialized to take photos of the event with a standalone or phone camera.

Okay, okay. Let’s get glasses and filters aplenty. But does this mean the world is about to end?

No. Millennia of eclipses have come and gone, and , for better or worse.

People are handling this totally normally and rationally online, right?

Haha. Of course they aren’t!

A bonkers story from online technology website some of the wilder claims circulating online. Among them: The eclipse will bring down electrical grids and cellphone service, it will disrupt the “” in which we all live, and assorted Biblical nonsense.

Will animals act all weird?

Take a read through the . In short, we know that birds and insects quiet down during an eclipse, but they don’t freak out or anything.

“The eclipse is strong enough to suppress that daytime diurnal activity — of day-flying insects and birds going to roost — but it’s not strong enough to initiate the kind of typical nocturnal behaviors we see at sunset,” said Andrew Farnsworth of the Center for Avian Population Studies at the Cornell University Lab of Ornithology.

For their part, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources if they have trouble with leashes but note that animals, generally, don’t look directly at the sun.

What is the state government doing?

In anticipation, Gov. Eric Holcomb has  letting Indiana call on a nationwide aid compact should the upcoming eclipse stress the state’s emergency response systems. Due to the number of people, officials expect a “widespread and significant impact” on Indiana’s “critical infrastructure systems,” including for communication, emergency response and transportation, according to the order.

Alcohol regulators are even getting in on the fun and will be able to .

If you might be driving, be prepared for potential slowdowns and traffic disruptions. Pack plenty of water, food and fuel along with chargers, maps and emergency kits. The Indiana Destination Development Corporation (IDDC) has for safe viewing.

And, perhaps our favorite thing, First Lady Janet Holcomb made ‘Path of Totality’ deviled eggs.

Any events in Indiana I should know about?

Tons! The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, for example, was selected as a National Air and Space Administration (NASA) broadcast location. Now it’s got a packed schedule  multiple astronauts, IndyCar drivers, NASA officials and Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb. The brickyard will also host technical and family-friendly educational programming.

Speaking of the IDDC, they’ve compiled a of all the other festivities around the state.

Indiana Capital Chronicle Reporter Leslie Bonilla Muñiz contributed to this story.

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For a year and a half, 20 eager Virginia Tech students have diligently prepared their scientific balloons for Eclipse Day. Along with about 800 other undergraduates nationwide who will participate in the NASA-sponsored National Eclipse Ballooning Project, these STEM students will launch balloons with scientific instruments attached to gather more information about Earth’s atmosphere.

On April 8, a total solar eclipse will cross North America, tracing a path over far more populated areas of the United States than the last one in August 2017. The project, which Montana State University started in 2017 to involve STEM students in this historic day, includes 53 teams who will document an event that won’t happen again for another 20 years.

Angela Des Jardins, director of the project, says the experience provides students with hands-on opportunities that they don’t get in the classroom. Of the 75 colleges taking part, 30% are minority-serving and 15% are community colleges.

“Ballooning has been around for a long time, and some of the bigger institutions that have more resources, it’s easy for them to go do this kind of thing,” Des Jardins says. “What’s really important is to give students opportunities that wouldn’t have them otherwise.”

The project also offers students access to over 200 mentors and a speaker series where NASA scientists and other experts in the field offer career advice.

The program has two tracks: atmospheric science and engineering. Each group is focused on preparing its payloads. For the atmospheric science groups, these are instruments like radiosondes that are used to measure temperature, humidity and wind speed. Radiosondes are the same instruments used by the National Weather Service at least twice a day at the 93 stations across the country.

“The thing that’s different from what the National Weather Service does is, instead of just flying two a day, they [students] actually fly one every hour 24 hours before the eclipse, then six hours after,” Des Jardins said.

Des Jardins says flying the radiosondes multiple times gives students a snapshot before and during the eclipse to compare the changes caused by the cold, dark shadow of the moon. 

For engineering team members, the payloads involve different types of cameras, such as GoPros and 360-degree cameras. NASA will be livestreaming the images they capture on its website.

The project is not only beneficial for documenting history and allowing environmental scientists to understand the atmosphere better as they research climate change. The highly technical experiment also gives students experiences they need as they pursue internships, graduate school and full-time jobs.

Virginia Smith participated in the 2017 challenge during her senior year at the University of Kentucky as a mechanical engineering student. Like many of the current participants, Smith came on to the project having little experience with technical electronics. She started by building boxes for the cameras to be placed on the balloon’s flight string. Her team had two balloons, one of which she was in charge of. As mission lead, she says, timing was everything. It was crucial that the balloon reached 100,000 feet right in time with totality, which occurs when the moon is completely obscuring the sun.

“Students create timelines that allowed us to be at a particular altitude during totality and record footage, which was the entire goal of that project,” Smith said. “As mission controller, not only making sure that the other people who have payloads are ready to go, you’re making sure that you’re on that timeline. You have a very small window to hit for the launch. And if you miss that window, you’re going to miss your altitude target.”

Smith credits the project from seven years ago for her interest in satellites and balloons. The project also helped her during her two internships at NASA in 2016 and 2017, where she focused on designing small satellites and did finite element analysis, which involves using calculations to predict how an object might behave under various conditions.

Now, as a graduate research assistant and Ph.D. candidate in aerospace engineering at Virginia Tech, she has been mentoring this year’s participants for the last year and a half, offering her first-hand knowledge to the group as a former mission lead. The team will be stationed at Three Rivers College in Missouri on the big day and flying two balloons.

What she learned during those internships “actually did come into play for the [2017] eclipse, because we were designing payloads 
 and making sure they could withstand impact in terms of landing,” Smith said. The team had to consider multiple possibilities, such as the balloon landing in water, in a high tree or on top of a roof. “There are all these scenarios that you’re looking at. How do you make a successful design to survive the environment both in the atmosphere and then also as you land?”

Smith is excited to be able to view the total eclipse for a longer period this year. But she’s most looking forward to seeing the hard work the students have put in for several months, with test launches and payload development, pay off. Many team members are transfer students from community colleges and came in with different skill sets and no background in engineering or ballooning. This experience has helped multiple students get summer internships.

“We get to enjoy the eclipse and then we get to enjoy totality. It’ll be an exciting event for everyone, and most of the students have not seen an eclipse before. So this is also an opportunity for them to be able to experience natural phenomenon that will not be coast to coast in the U.S. for several years more,” Smith said.

Corrections: The name of the NASA-sponsored organization is the National Eclipse Ballooning Project. The project reached out after publication to correct the balloon’s target altitude. It’s 100,000 feet.

On April 8, more than 750 college students across the United States will launch hundreds of weather balloons into the atmosphere to research, observe and engage with the total solar eclipse as a part of a student initiative spearheaded by the Montana Space Grant Consortium.

Drawing from the highly successful NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF)-sponsored (NEBP) implemented during the 2017, 2019, 2020 and 2023 total solar eclipses, this current NEBP initiative aims to broaden STEM student participation during the upcoming total solar eclipse — .

Students from 75 higher education institutions, including Minority Serving Institutions and community colleges will have the opportunity to garner atmospheric measurements that can only be conducted during an eclipse. 

The balloons, carrying long, hanging strings of scientific instruments, will enter the path of totality, the area on Earth’s surface where the moon completely covers the sun. 

People along the path of totality, which stretches from Texas to Maine, will have the chance to see the eclipse. For those outside this path, a partial solar eclipse will be visible.

NEBP hopes to “enable inclusive STEM education for participating students, advance learners’ understanding of the process of science as well as create, enhance and sustain networks and partnerships.” 

As anticipation builds for the upcoming spectacle, we wanted to share incredible archives from NEBP’s previous balloon launches. The breathtaking snapshots from the sky offer a unique perspective on past solar eclipses to gear up for the big day.

All photos courtesy of National Eclipse of Ballooning Project (NEBP) Education