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On February 26, 1998, hundreds of people gathered to watch a total solar eclipse.
The crowd gasped as the moon devoured the sun. They ran and ran as the feathery streams of the top of the solar atmosphere burst into view. Applause erupted moments later when the sun peeked behind the lunar surface.
“He was saved again by the laws of celestial engineering,” an event host said in a video recording of scenes from Aruba, one of the places where the eclipse crossed the earth.
Except the crowd wasn’t actually in Aruba. They were thousands of miles away in San Francisco, gathered in front of a screen in a museum called the Exploratorium. For what might have been the first time in Internet history, a solar eclipse was streamed live. The crowd in the auditorium was not the only remote audience of the eclipse. Probably millions of users of the young World Wide Web watched “Eclipse ’98,” creating a moment of digital fire years before audiences were overtaken by viral videos like “Peanut Butter Jelly Time,” “Charlie Bit My Finger” or “Gangnam Style.” .”
Technology has brought space down to Earth for decades. Audiences were in awe as NASA broadcast humanity’s first steps on the moon in 1969. Years later, they watched in horror as the space shuttle Challenger exploded on television.
But the rise of the World Wide Web offered a new way to meet the world. Anyone with a computer, a fast enough Internet modem, and a monitor can participate on demand in the ethereal stasis under the shadow of the moon — no longer reserved for those who might reach the eclipse path.
And just as audiences in the late 19th century were amazed to see moving images projected onto screens for the first time, the crowd at the Exploratorium seemed impressed by what they were seeing on the live stream.
“Even from a distance, people can have that emotional connection that’s so important to an eclipse,” said Robyn Higdon, the Exploratorium’s executive producer.
Scenes from the webcast gathering in Aruba depict the height of the 1990s. There’s no shortage of turtlenecks, pixie cuts and colorful windbreakers in the crowd. The hosts of the event donned vintage wired headphones and stood next to bulky, white computers.
The Internet was just taking off: YouTube wouldn’t be founded for another seven years, and fewer than half of Americans were online, many frustrated by slow dial-up speeds. Despite the technological hurdles, the live stream of the eclipse — made possible with the help of NASA and the Discovery Channel — was an attempt by the Exploratorium to establish an online presence. Part of the goal was to share what was inside with people who couldn’t visit in person, said Rob Semper, the museum’s chief learning officer, who helped launch its website more than 30 years ago.
“But at the same time,” added Dr. Semper, “the web was also a way to bring in the outside world.”
What staff members didn’t expect was how many people his webcast would reach beyond the museum walls. Among the first high-resolution live videos of a solar eclipse, the stream was picked up by major news networks. Museum officials say four million viewers tuned in live online.
Years later, the digital audience for eclipses and other astronomical events has grown. The online audience was huge for the 2017 total solar eclipse that hit the United States, and by then many organizations besides the Exploratorium were streaming the solar spectacle. NASA broadcast live from 12 locations. The Science Channel, which aired live in Oregon, also attracted a large number of views. Both plan to do it again for the eclipse on April 8 this year.
“As with so many aspects of our lives that the Internet has changed, it’s all about accessibility,” said Jeff Hall, a solar astronomer at the Lowell Observatory, who narrated parts of a 2017 webcast. they’ve long been available, he added, but “it’s another level of experience to be able to watch the event unfold in real time.”
The live streams also offer an opportunity for viewers to learn about the different cultural beliefs of the places under the shadow of the moon. Last October, the Exploratorium broadcast the “ring of fire” eclipse from Utah’s Valley of the Gods, where giant, rocky red cones erupt from the earth. Because the land is sacred to members of the Navajo Nation, the museum partnered with Navajo astronomers who shared traditional knowledge of the universe.
Not everyone believes that the internet is a worthy substitute for real life. “It’s a bad way to experience an eclipse,” said Paul Maley, a retired NASA engineer who has seen 83 of them and counting.
Eclipses, Mr. Maley explained, are more than what you see: During totality, the winds shift, temperatures drop and the horizon brightens. “Watching a live stream doesn’t provide any of that,” he said.
Patricia Reiff, a physicist at Rice University, somewhat agrees. “The live feed is nice, but it’s basically just visual,” he said. “It’s like the difference between seeing a picture of the Grand Canyon and canoeing down it.”
However, Dr Reif has created webcasts of some of the solar eclipses she travels to see – so far, 25 of them – and believes that at least some of the experience can be conveyed through the screen. The 1991 solar eclipse is one of the last memories she has of her mother, who watched a telecast of the event while Dr. Reif saw it in Mexico.
“It was a moment we shared, even though we were so far apart,” he said.
Beyond live streams, the Internet has greatly expanded the reach of information about eclipses, including locations, safe viewing practices, and weather outlooks, to the public. Eclipse hunters use it as a tool to connect with each other, organize trips, and describe their visceral reactions to totality. The researchers even analyzed social media activity since the 2017 eclipse to study the tourism trends it drove to rural communities.
In April, the Exploratorium will be back at it again, this time with production crews in Texas and Mexico to broadcast the last solar eclipse to hit the contiguous United States in 20 years. They will host programs in both English and Spanish, and will also provide what Larry Kenworthy, the museum’s technical director of eclipse missions, calls “the nerd feed” — a three-hour feed for organizations to use to their own watch parties, or for those on the Internet who want to immerse themselves in nothing but opinions.
Dr. Hall, who will host a live show on the Science Channel on April 8, hopes that these online streams will eventually inspire viewers to one day see an eclipse in real life.
“Put it on the list to go see sometime,” he said. “Because as cool as the internet is, you can’t replicate the experience of actually being in the path of totality.”
