Ignas Barauskas almost missed it. He bought plane tickets from his home in Lithuania to the United States about a month ago. After a series of flight delays, he landed in Dallas around midnight, ready for a once-in-a-lifetime total eclipse of the sun.
“I probably wouldn’t have come to Dallas if it hadn’t been for the total solar eclipse,” Barauskas said. “It seems like it will be a grand event, the sun hiding away during the day,” he told The Guardian of UK.
On Monday morning he took public transit – because all rental cars had been booked in the city for months – to Dallas’s White Rock Lake, arriving moments before the partial eclipse started. All morning he and millions of other umbraphiles, or eclipse chasers, worried about the gloomy forecast of thick clouds.
But then, just before the total eclipse began, the clouds parted. The view of the sun’s brilliant corona left the city in evening-like darkness for as much as four minutes.
“Everyone was screaming,” Barauskas said. “Like a concert.”
Barauskas was among the millions who traveled to the path of totality that stretched from western Mexico to Newfoundland on Monday – much of it under lingering cloudy skies.
The Dallas-Fort Worth region was the largest metropolitan area on the path of totality for Monday’s total solar eclipse, making north Texas a major destination and creating potential headaches for locals. The cloudy weather left some scrambling at the last minute to change plans and head for clearer skies, but for much of north Texas totality itself was clear.
“Better than all expectations,” Barauskas said.
The rare event was an astronomical experience like no other. Monday’s eclipse was unusually accessible to millions of people. It was widely anticipated not only for its remarkable period of darkness, but for its rare timing: No total solar eclipse would be visible from the contiguous United States again until 2044.
Solar eclipse explained
In a total solar eclipse, the moon comes in between the sun and the earth and blocks out the sun. The sky darkens in the process and makes the location where it occurs seem like it has experienced nightfall.
This year’s solar eclipse crossed North America, passing over Mexico, the United States, and Canada.
NASA had predicted that the eclipse would begin over the South Pacific Ocean. “Weather permitting, the first location in continental North America that will experience totality is Mexico’s Pacific coast at around 11:07 a.m. PDT,” the space agency said on its website.
Monday’s eclipse began in the Pacific Ocean and made landfall at Mazatlan, Mexico, before moving into Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and 12 other US states in the Midwest, Middle Atlantic and then Canada’s Newfoundland, with the eclipse ending in the North Atlantic.
US authorities issue states of emergency
The solar eclipse on Monday prompted local authorities in the United States of America to declare states of emergency due to the huge crowds expected to witness the event.
The State of Indiana issued a state of emergency declaration effective until on April 9, to prepare for an increase in visitors that could complicate emergency responses.
Officials in in New York’s Essex County declared a state of emergency to run from April 6 to 10 to prepare for tourist influx and possible communcations service disruptions. A similar declaration was made in the state’s Oswego County.
Arkansas also issued a state of emergency declaration on April 5.
In Canada, the Niagara Region also issued a state of emergency declaration as officials in Niagara Falls, Ontario expected up to one million tourists for the event.
Weddings and proposals
Al Jazeera reported that in Russellville, Arkansas, a town of roughly 30,000 people near the southern US state’s only nuclear power plant, almost 400 couples tied the knot by the shadow of the moon in a mass wedding event dubbed “Elope and the Eclipse”.
Further north in Niagara Falls, clouds threatened to disrupt viewing parties for the crowd of about 2,000 people who had gathered in the state park.
There were at least two weddings and one marriage proposal at the falls as the clouds parted to reveal the last 30 seconds of totality, and the crowd went wild, cheering and shouting, “It’s so beautiful.”
As the skies began to brighten again, a band played out the retreating lunar shadow with a rendition of REM’s 1992 hit song Man on the Moon.
Hear and feel the eclipse
While eclipse watchers looked to the skies, people who were blind or visually impaired were able to hear and feel the celestial event.
Devices that can translate the eclipse on sound and touch devices were available at some public gatherings.
An astronomer who is blind collaborated with an astronomer from Harvard University to design the LightSound box, which translates changing light in the sky into differing musical notes. Another device allowed users to feel the eclipse through rows of dots that moved up and down.
Some animals changed their behaviour
Scientists and zookeepers watched Monday as giraffes, gorillas, lions, macaws and flamingoes exhibited unusual behavior during the total solar eclipse.
Because total eclipses happen so infrequently, researchers don’t know much about how they impact animals. They studied animals on Monday at several zoos situated along the eclipse path of totality, such as the Fort Worth Zoo in Texas.
CBS News reports that animals were largely calm at the Fort Worth Zoo, though some, including the gorillas, lions and lemurs, showed increased signs of vigilance and curiosity.
“Most importantly, we did not observe any signs of increased anxiety or nervous behaviors,” a Fort Worth Zoo spokesperson said. “And by the time totality had passed, things went back to normal, almost immediately!”
Several animals at the Fort Worth Zoo made their way toward their barn doors, which is where they go at night, as the skies darkened during the eclipse, the zoo spokesperson said. The Aldabra tortoises, giraffes, elephants, kudu, bonobos, coatis and gorillas all headed toward their barns.
Zoos were also able to observe some unique daytime behavior from nocturnal animals. At the Fort Worth Zoo, a ringtail cat and two owl species showed increased activity during the day.
Also in Texas, zookeepers at the Dallas Zoo saw giraffes and zebras run around during the eclipse. Chimpanzees patrolled the outer edge of their habitat at the zoo while all but one of a bachelor group of gorillas went to the door they use to go in at night.
An ostrich at the Dallas Zoo laid an egg during the eclipse. Other birds got louder before totality, then went silent. Flamingos and penguins huddled together.
Birds also showed unique behavior at the Indianapolis Zoo, a zoo spokesperson said. Macaws, budgies and other birds got quiet and roosted up high, which is nighttime behavior.
“You can hear they’re totally silent now – not a peep, and no movement,” Indianapolis Zoo President and CEO, Dr Robert Shumake said in a video recorded during totality.
When is the next solar eclipse?
The last time the earth experienced a total solar eclipse was in 2021 and it was only visible from Antarctica.
The last total solar eclipse witnessed in Nigeria occurred on March 29, 2006.
The next total solar eclipse will be on August 12, 2026, according to experts. It will be seen in Greenland, Iceland, and Spain. Almost exactly a year later, on August 2, 2027, one will be visible from northern Africa, Gibraltar, and the Saudi peninsula.
READ ALSO: Police arrest man, wife for producing fake wines in Lagos