April's Total Solar Eclipse To Be The Best Yet For Experiments

Hundreds of citizen scientists’ would help NASA and other research groups better understand our planet and star

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April's total solar eclipse promises to be a scientific bonanza, thanks to new spacecraft and telescopes and cosmic chance.

The moon will be extra close to Earth, providing a long and intense period of darkness, and the sun should be more active with the potential for dramatic bursts of plasma.

Then there's totality's densely populated corridor stretching from Mexico to the U.S. to Canada.

Hundreds if not thousands of the tens of millions of spectators will double as "citizen scientists," helping NASA and other research groups better understand our planet and star.

They'll photograph the sun's outer crownlike atmosphere, or corona, as the moon passes between the sun and Earth, blotting out sunlight for up to 4 minutes and 28 seconds on April 8.