BY KAREN BOSSICK
The countdown is 23 days, if you count today.
And the City of Ketchum is helping you get ready for the Great American Eclipse on Aug. 21 by bringing in physicist Brian Jackson, a former employee working at NASA’s Goodard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Jackson, who now teaches astronomy at Boise State University, will offer a free look at the solar eclipse at 5:30 p.m. tonight—Saturday, July 29—at Ketchum Town Square.
Jackson, who was a postdoctoral fellow at the Carnegie institution of Washington’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, will talk about the history of eclipses and the role they play in helping scientists understand the university.
He will also discuss how to observe next month’s total solar eclipse safely and how to get the most out of it.
The Great American Eclipse is being billed as an once-in-a-lifetime event. And both Ketchum and Sun Valley are in the path of totality. While the heart of the event—the moon blocking the sun—lasts about a minute, there are many other phenomena that should keep people spellbound for about three hours.