Geology Club Witnesses Totality

-submitted by Morgan Lewis

From Saturday, April 6 to Monday, April 8, the UT Geology Club, the student association of the Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, traveled to East Prairie, Missouri, to observe the totality of the 2024 total solar eclipse. Seventeen students, including four undergraduates and 13 graduate students ranging from freshmen to fourth-year PhD students, attended the trip. 

Ivy Ettenborough, secretary and treasurer of the Geology Club, hosted the group at her family’s home in East Prairie, where students camped in the front yard. Along with Ettenborough, Geology Club President Morgan Lewis and former Vice President Brittan Wogsland co-led the logistics of the trip. Notable stops included a hike at Burgess Falls State Park in Baxter, Tennessee, visiting The World’s Largest Superman Statue in Metropolis, Illinois, and exploring Elephant Rocks State Park in Belleview, Missouri. 

Using Lewis’s eight-inch Dobsonian telescope, students were able to observe Jupiter along with three of its Galilean moons and Orion’s nebula the night before the eclipse. On the day of the eclipse, the telescope allowed students to safely observe all eclipse phases throughout the afternoon. 

The weather in East Prairie was incredible for the entire event and students were even able to observe and document the “shadow bands” phenomenon that occurs right before and after totality. Totality lasted two minutes, 46 seconds in East Prairie and led to darkened skies, cooler temperatures, morning bird songs, and 360-degree “sunset” skies. 

A unanimous vote among attendees said that the long, 11-hour journey back to Knoxville and 4:15 a.m. arrival back on campus was well worth the chance to experience the potentially once-in-a-lifetime event of totality.