Top 4 Indispensably Useful Discoveries Scientists Have Made From Their Study Of Eclipses

Eclipses are amazing astronomical phenomenon that we witness occasionally, usually full of tremendous power and beauty. For scientists and other astronomical  hunters, it is an event that leads the way to a host of important and immensely revelatory pieces of knowledge especially about our planet and our existence in it, and also
about the universe itself.
This article focuses on various such important pieces of knowledge and how they were discovered. Some of the discoveries during these eclipses were downright groundbreaking, have revolutionary effects on the sciences, such as the eclipse that confirmed Albert Einstein's theory of relativity. With better and more advanced and more sophisticated scientific observatory tools and methods, we will be provided with deeper insights by observing these events.

The Discovery Of Helium

The world saw an eclipse in the year 1886, whose part of totality passed over India. During this eclipse, a French astronomer, Pierre Janseen made a startling discovery. While watching the eclipse, he observed a bright yellow line in the spectrum of a solar prominence, a bright cloud of hot ionized gas that extended into the corona. Professional scientists are well acquainted with the scientific method of discovery, which ultimately comes to be needed at such moments. Pierre made good use of it. He told another astronomer, Joseph Norman Locker of his observations. Locker has missed the eclipse. But using a scientific instrument of observation, the spectrograph, to observe the yellow line in a prominence outside a solar eclipse. Locker couldn't identity the line with any element known on earth at that time and concluded  it a new element, naming it helium. Helium was not discovered on earth until 1895. 

The Corona Of Our Home Star The Sun

In 1930, a  German astronomer Nalter Grotrian, examination of the solar corona obtained at a total eclipse and made some important discoveries, by which he put forth the hypothesis that coronal light consisted of photospheric light  that has been scattered towards the earth by free electrons. Based on this , another scientist Bengt Edlen  was able to identity the majority of the dozen known coronal lines with elements found on earth such as, silicon, calcium, and iron. From these discoveries, scientists have been able to  know that the corona can attain temperatures as high as three to four million k.

Our Earth And Other Planets In Planets Our Solar System

Eclipses was what helped scientists in the long ancient past come to the conclusion that our planet, earth is a sphere, and also helped them calculate/determine the size  of the earth and the moon. Eclipses of the sun have often revealed a lot  about other planets and planetary bodies in our solar system, because some of this  planets are brought within visible sights where they can be observed. Scientists have been able to take the temperature of the planet Mercury during a solar eclipse.

The Experimental Confirmation Of  Albert Einstein's General Theory Of Relativity

The eclipse of may 29 1919 served a very useful and unforgettable purpose in the world of science. It was from it scientists came to agree to the validity of Einstein's theory of general relativity. The theory predicted several things, including, most importantly, that rays of light emanating from a distant star, in the university passing near the sun, should be deflected to a measurable extent by the gravity of our home star, the sun.
The observation of the 1919 eclipse confirmed these predictions. This was a major moment of achievement and discovery in the history of science and in the career of Albert Einstein