Hundreds of CNU students, faculty and staff turned to the sky on Monday to experience the highly anticipated partial eclipse that threw shadows over The Great Lawn and left the entire campus lightly chilled.
“There hasn’t been a solar eclipse in a while that we could see from here, so it ended up being perfect weather conditions,” CNU junior Kailynne Landry told The Captain’s Log. “Might as well go out and see something unique.”
Landry and her fellow American Sign Language club members had moved their meeting to the lawn in order to enjoy the eclipse viewing.
While other parts of the world experienced a total eclipse, Newport News saw 83% coverage of the moon over the sun, according to Eclipse2024. The last eclipse occurred in 2017 and resulted in 43% coverage over Newport News. Some students expressed regret in not being able to witness that eclipse in person seven years ago.
“I’ve never seen an eclipse. I know that there’s been one in the past, but I have never seen one. So this is my first time,” said freshman Libby Wheeler.
The CNU Astronomy Club handed out eclipse glasses, which according to Nasa, have extra dark lenses and must comply with the ISO 12312-2 international standard. Although, the club ran out of all 275 free pairs of glasses in 30 minutes.
“It’s just really exciting to see how many people are around CNU, on The Great Lawn,” said sophomore and President of the Astronomy Club Joshua Gould.
Gould emphasized that the eclipse is a rare phenomenon. The next eclipse within the United States will be in 2044, according to The Washington Post, so for many students, this was a truly unique experience.
