(Reuters) — America’s coast-to-coast total solar eclipse on Aug. 21 is a must-see, “once in a lifetime event,” a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said on Wednesday.
Michelle Thaller also urged the public to use safety glasses or other homemade devices to avoid looking directly at the sun.
“It’s never safe to look at the sun with unprotected eyes. If even a little bit of the sun’s surface is still exposed you can hurt your eyes,” she said.
This year’s spectacle will be the first in 99 years to span the entire continental United States – the world’s third most populous nation – across a 70-mile-wide (113-km) path over 14 states, from the Pacific coast of Oregon to the Atlantic shore of South Carolina.
It will also be the first total solar eclipse visible from any of the Lower 48 states since 1979.
“I think they’re the most beautiful things you can see in the sky,” said Thaller, who has previously witnessed total solar eclipses in Siberia and Egypt.
“It is beautiful, it is profound, and I hope as many people as possible get a chance to experience it.”
