Engaging and educating eclipse observers in the Heliophysics Big Year

The “Heliophysics Big Year” was an extended “year” when major solar events engaged the public. NASA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded several projects to educate the public on the science of the heliosphere and safe observing practices. In response to this initiative, we worked with other teams to create and disseminate accurate yet engaging information. We expanded our eclipse website (https://space.rice.edu/eclipse/) with activities, citizen science projects, resources, training videos, suggested equipment, and links to other compendia. We directed the Citizen CATE 2024 project, and trained state coordinators and their teams to use the specialized equipment and procedures. We trained teachers at local, regional, national, and international workshops, providing eclipse viewing cards, lenses for making “solar cup projectors,” a pattern for a safe viewing screen, and additional materials. With other teams, we gave presentations to the media at SciLine in San Antonio and hosted public events to demonstrate safe eclipse viewing techniques. The most lasting and impactful product was our planetarium show “Totality,” which was distributed free of license fees. More than 180,000 views of the show and its animations have been documented. We improved our space weather forecasting site (https://mms.rice.edu) and used our email lists (14,000+) to send out real-time warnings about the major solar storm of 10–11 May 2024. In total, we provided nearly two million people with heliophysics information. In summary, the federal/private/business partnerships meant that the events of this “year” were a fun, safe, learning experience for tens of millions of Americans.

1 Introduction

Scientists and agencies have historically joined together to highlight science in “Big Years,” starting with the International Geophysical Year (IGY) in 1957–58 (Lipuma, 2022) during one of the largest solar maxima in recent history. The IGY led to the discovery of the Radiation Belts and the solar driver of the aurora and launched the field of magnetospheric physics. Such major efforts comprise many individual thrusts that work in coordination. Such an effort has recently occurred for the “Heliophysics Big Year” (HBY).

Rice University and the Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) have had an ongoing formal outreach association in space science since 1988, when we created the first National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Teacher Research Program in Astronomy and Earth Science. This credit-bearing program led to the Master of Science Teaching program (https://mst.rice.edu).

The collaboration between Dr. Carolyn Sumners, Vice President for Astronomy and Physical Science at HMNS, and Prof. Patricia Reiff, Physics & Astronomy, led to many other HMNS/Rice “firsts” in educational technology, including the world’s first internet-connected science kiosk, the US’s first video planetarium, the first Earth Science planetarium show, and the first portable video planetarium (https://space.rice.edu/rice_hmns_firsts.html) (Sumners and Reiff, 2004). Our research showed that learning in a dome leads to greater content retention than viewing on a flatscreen (Zimmerman et al., 2014). Another study showed that educators and students gain understanding of magnetism and eclipses using planetarium animations and shows (Reiff and Sumners, 2017).

Reiff is a heliospheric physicist, co-investigator of the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS), and a subject-matter expert (SME) for many outreach programs, including NASA Heliophysics Education Activation Team (HEAT) and its predecessors.

This article documents the products we and others created in this partnership and provides our perspective on the effectiveness of these efforts. For more details on these activities, see Reiff et al. (2025).

1.1 Heliophysics “Big Year” activities

The HBY was coordinated by HEAT at Goddard. We expanded our eclipse website (https://space.rice.edu/eclipse/), both with materials we developed and links to other sites. We primarily targeted teachers because of the multiplicative effect but also used the media, websites, email lists, and – most importantly – our planetarium show “Totality.” In addition, Reiff was the Southwest Regional Coordinator for the Citizen CATE 2024 project (see Section 4), and we updated our space weather forecasting site, providing crucial forecasts (Section 5).

2 Educational materials

2.1 Eclipse animations

We created solar and lunar eclipse animations to aid teachers and planetarians. More than 190 educators (166 planetariums and 24 schools) in 34 countries and 33 US states (yellow markers in Figure 1) have requested the animations. The animations are on YouTube with more than 70,000 views.

Figure 1

Figure 1. World map of planetarium and school downloads of our eclipse animations (yellow), “Totality” show (blue), and the special Texas version, “Totality Over Texas” (red).

One of our animations had a timely confirmation. We noted in “Lunar eclipse from the Moon” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEEHtstD7Rg) that if there is a total lunar eclipse as observed from Earth, it would be a total solar eclipse for lunar observers. However, the Earth would be four times the diameter of the Sun, meaning that the corona would be visible only at the beginning of the eclipse on one side of the Earth and at the end of the eclipse on the other side. In between, the Earth’s atmosphere would glow red from the scattered sunlight that gives the eclipsed Moon its dark red color. In March 2025, the “Blue Ghost” spacecraft captured the “diamond ring” observed from the lunar surface by Firefly Aerospace. Figure 2 shows our prediction from the animation (left) and the Blue Ghost image (right).

Figure 2

Figure 2. (left) Our predicted “diamond ring” as observed from the Moon from our “Lunar Eclipse from the Moon” animation (created by Don Davis for Rice University). (right) Diamond ring as observed by Blue Ghost on the lunar surface (used with permission of Firefly Aerospace).

2.2 Planetarium show “totality”

The show: The capstone of our effort was producing a fulldome planetarium show, “Totality!” The show, which used some of our NASA-supported animations, was a cooperative project between HMNS, Rice, and ePlanetarium (https://www.eplanetarium.com).

The show includes the history and science of eclipses, the path of the 2024 eclipse, and eclipse safety. It ends with the future of solar eclipses as the Moon slowly drifts away from the Earth, leaving only annular eclipses in the distant future.

The show was distributed free of license fees in several formats: flatscreen for schools and the media, fisheye 2K and 4K versions for small and large planetariums, and a “prewarped” format for mirror-based planetariums.

Distribution metrics: “Totality” was distributed to 147 planetariums. The “Totality over Texas” version was distributed to 53 Texas planetariums and schools. All requesters received English versions, with optional English subtitles. In addition, 34 sites received Spanish audio tracks, and 16 more received Spanish subtitles to show with the English version. One site created a Romanian audio track.

Viewing metrics: Receiving institutions reported 133,469 views, with an additional 8,800 views from HMNS (which offered it daily for more than a year). The show was also available from FullDomeOnDemand.com, with 278 planetariums renting the show for 3 days. YouTube views topped 5,000, including Spanish and Romanian. Thus, the total show impact was well more than 180,000, not counting 87 sites that did not report metrics.

2.3 Teacher programs

We offered both formal and informal teacher eclipse education programs. In formal education, Rice University offers four semester-long courses for teachers (https://mst.rice.edu). We emphasized eclipse science and eclipse safety in all four classes, starting before the 2017 eclipse and continuing through the 2023/2024 eclipse season. We also conducted many teacher workshops on eclipse science and eclipse safety, where we distributed maps (Figure 3) and eclipse viewers (cards or glasses), reaching more than 10,000 educators in person.

Figure 3

Figure 3. Eclipse map of the “Texas Nexus.” Thousands were distributed with the eclipse viewers.

2.4 Website

Our eclipse website (https://space.rice.edu/eclipse) has archived eclipse information and images since 2004, and we have been actively updating the site since 2014, with major additions for the 2017 and 2024 eclipses. The website is visited frequently and is a major source of new subscribers to our eclipse newsletter, which peaked at 1,842 users (in addition to the 12,000 teachers in our teacher “mailman” and 2,200 in our teacher “mailchimp” lists). The website includes sections on activities, graphics, equipment, safe observing, and FAQs, along with a link to the Totality video. Each section includes links to download materials we developed or links to other sites.

Teacher feedback: The average number of people who received information from EACH respondent was over 500, indicating a strong multiplicative effect. The sections of the website used most often with students were Animations (75%) and Safe Observing Techniques (66.7%), with Activities, FAQs, and Graphics all tied at 42%. The sections that were judged the most useful were Animations, Graphics, Activities, and the Eclipse movie.

Some quotes: “As the STEM/Science Coordinator at my school, I utilized and shared these resources with all of the teachers and classes at our PreK–8th grade school. We had an eclipse watching party on the school grounds during the last solar eclipse. Your materials were SO helpful! We purchased eclipse glasses for the entire school. For the younger students (PreK–2nd), we used the paper plate “mask” with the glasses to provide further protection for our younger viewers.”

“Also used the Solar Eclipse animation in a small exhibit set up at the public viewing site for the actual eclipse – attended by approximately 4,000.”

“Thank you, Dr. Pat! Our entire school (Grades K–8) had an eclipse party using your activities and resources from the SEEC presentation. I appreciate your help!”

2.5 Activities

The “Activities” webpage assembled eclipse activities suitable for learners of all ages. We included a link to the NASA Citizen Science page for more options, along with several easy-to-follow write-ups.

The activity handouts included a new device we invented: the solar cup projector. While most “pinhole” projectors provide a small, dim image, we wanted a brighter, larger, yet still safe image. Our device is an adaptation of our design for the solar projector on the HMNS sundial (https://space.rice.edu/sundial/pdf/HMNS_Sundial_Info.pdf), which has a special silver ball on the top of the gnomon with three holes to cast an image of the Sun at solar noon on the equinoxes and solstices. Using a large hole and a low-diopter focusing lens, a bright image can be brought into focus (Figure 4).

Figure 4

Figure 4. Solar cup projector casting an image of the annular eclipse, Corpus Christi, TX, 14 October 2023. Courtesy: Deborah Edwards.

The solar cup projectors use an opaque plastic cup with a hole cut in the bottom and a low-diopter lens taped over it. A 1.5× (1.5 diopter) lens (available in reading glasses from a dollar store) will focus a solar image at 67 cm, making a simple, safe viewer for less than a dollar.

2.6 Safe solar observing

Our safe solar observing page had links to safe observing compendia by NASA, the American Astronomical Society (AAS), and others. It also had patterns for our PREPARE poster and our Safe Solar Screen, and a link to our 20-min safety training video that demonstrates safe use of several types of equipment that we recommend (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXyUEXIFruE).

One unique piece of equipment we designed was for teachers who were not allowed to take their students outside. This special “solar screen” was designed to hang over a doorway with cutouts to tape on solar viewers so that the students could look at the Sun only through the viewers.

2.7 Equipment

We listed our favorite eclipse observing equipment (https://texaseclipse.net/equipment.html). Binocular tripod adapters (to mount standard binoculars on photographer tripods); slip-on solar filters for telescopes, binoculars, and telephoto lenses; 2× foldable eclipse binoculars; and gaffer tape are the most cost-effective additions to a solar viewing kit.

We designed and distributed both special “eclipse glasses” and “eclipse viewing cards,” providing more than 35,000 glasses and 30,000 cards at teacher and public events, along with a map (Figure 3). Sumners and Bethany Elliott, her intern, also designed a version of the card funded by Buc-ee’s® and distributed by HMNS (Figure 5). Each public school in Texas (more than 8,800) could request 100 cards for their school; using lanyards, each card could be used by dozens of students. Thus, more than one million eclipse viewers were distributed, reaching every public school district in the state.

Figure 5

Figure 5. Special Mayan-themed eclipse viewing card, created by student artist Bethany Elliott.

3 Citizen science: citizen CATE 2024

The Citizen Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse (CATE) 2024 project (https://eclipse.boulder.swri.edu/citizen-cate-2024/) was a major observing experiment for the total solar eclipse (TSE) of 8 April 2024, led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), in partnership with the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and other institutions, and funded by both NSF and NASA. CATE 2024’s educational goal was aimed at providing scientific opportunity and engagement for interested parties in communities along the eclipse path. The project’s scientific goal was to create a continuous movie of the corona during the approximately 1 h of totality over the United States, to study changes in the inner and middle corona that would be uniquely visible in our high-cadence, long-duration observation. To achieve this, 35 sites were chosen such that totality would be visible by two sites at all times (Figure 6), in case one site was clouded out or had technical difficulties. Each site was operated by a team of non-astronomer volunteers from a nearby community who were provided with identical observing equipment and procedures to obtain data in a uniform manner. Participants included students (middle school, high school, undergraduate, and graduate), educators, non-scientist professionals, and retirees. Each site’s equipment complement included an 80 mm refractor telescope (with a solar filter for observing outside of totality), an equatorial tracking mount, and a CMOS camera that registered the polarization of incoming light at four different angles simultaneously. These polarization measurements enable unique visualizations (Patel et al., 2023) and physical diagnostics of the corona. After the eclipse, the equipment was donated to each community to serve as a lasting educational and public outreach resource. Eight additional sites along the path used the same equipment setup; four were staffed by professionals, three were for outreach purposes only (no data collection), and one was a community volunteer team from the U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA). In total, more than 250 participants contributed across the 43 sites.

Figure 6

Figure 6. CATE 2024 viewing sites, including 35 community-led sites (light blue) and additional sites led by professionals (dark blue), outreach teams (orange), and the USAFA (green). Map image courtesy Google Maps.

The CATE 2024 project—its conception, development, implementation, and first examples of eclipse data—are detailed by Kovac et al. (2025). A 6-min video describing the project is available online. NCAR produced a 26-min documentary highlighting CATE 2024’s community impact and participation, Gathered in Darkness, that was shown by various PBS stations along the eclipse path; additional screenings can be requested.

Training for the CATE 2024 volunteer teams was accomplished through a network of coordinators. The path was divided into three regions: southwest, central, and northeast, each with 11–12 sites overseen by a regional coordinator (RC) and lead trainer (LT). Those regions were further divided into “State” groups of 4–5 teams, each with a state coordinator (SC) and its own lead trainer to help recruit, train, and assist teams. The RCs and their LTs were initially trained at SwRI in Boulder, CO, and then performed a live test of the equipment, software, and procedures at the TSE in Exmouth, Australia, in April 2023 (a livestream recording is available online).

Caspi served as the project PI, and Kovac as Project Manager. Reiff was the southwest RC, with Gardner, a graduate student, as LT (Figure 7). All RCs and SCs and their respective LTs participated in a training workshop at SwRI in San Antonio, TX, in January 2024, and SCs then held their own workshops in subsequent weeks to train their local teams. Each team received its equipment at the workshop and then held multiple practices leading up to eclipse day, including three nationally coordinated, simultaneous practices that included all teams and a dry-run the day before the eclipse. Teams shared their experiences and lessons learned through a project-specific Slack workspace, which helped provide rapid dissemination of information and enhanced both the volunteer experience and the uniformity and quality of the scientific data.

Figure 7

Figure 7. CATE 2024 telescope setup (foreground) at the Exmouth, AUS, eclipse, with authors Gardner and Reiff analyzing eclipse imagery.

On eclipse day, every CATE 2024 team participated in the field, including all community-led, professional, and outreach teams. The earliest data were processed within 24 h and presented at the Triennial Earth–Sun Summit (now called the Heliophysics Summit) in Dallas, TX, only 2 days after the eclipse, and in a SwRI press release. Full details are discussed by Kovac et al. (2025).

Each site observed the eclipse in sequences of eight images with varying exposure times that were combined to form high dynamic range (HDR) images spanning approximately 1.6 s. Each site acquired approximately 130–170 HDR images of totality that capture the full coronal polarization, which can be color-coded by polarization angle (Patel et al., 2023; see also Figure 8, taken by team 7 – Kemp ISD in partnership with Texas A&M). The saturation indicates the relative amount of polarization, and prominences (e.g., near the bottom), which are largely unpolarized, are rendered as white. The measured polarization contains important information on coronal conditions, and the data are also being processed in other ways (as discussed by Kovac et al., 2025) for detailed scientific analysis that is still underway.

Figure 8

Figure 8. CATE 2024 “quicklook” coronal image from team 7 in north Texas, color-coded by the direction of polarization of the coronal light.

4 Space weather forecasting

With funding from the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS), we post highly accurate but short-term forecasts of space weather (https://mms.rice.edu/forecast.html) using Interplanetary Magnetic Field (IMF) and solar wind data from the ACE and DSCOVR spacecraft at the Earth-Sun L1 Lagrange point, which provides approximately 45 min of advance warning of a solar wind hitting the magnetosphere (Bala and Reiff, 2012; Bala and Reiff, 2014). We create 1-h- and 3-h-ahead predictions of Kp (a global activity index, logarithmic from 0 to 9, which uses a neural network with base function of the “Boyle Index” (Boyle et al., 1997)); Dst (a measure of the equatorial magnetic field depression in nT, caused by particle injections, plus a correction due to solar wind pressure (O’Brien and McPherron, 1998)); and AE (a measure of the auroral intensity, measured in nT). For this event, the pressure contribution was only approximately 40 nT of the total 400 nT.

In May 2024, a giant coronal mass ejection (CME) passed by L1, sending our Kp forecast up to Kp9 (Figure 9). We sent out email alerts to our Spacalrt subscribers and all our outreach lists (more than 20,000 subscribers), plus posts on Meta and X. The resulting Gannon Storm yielded auroras in California, Arizona, and Texas. Many people sent us thanks and photographs of an amazing event they would have missed without the reminder: “GO OUTSIDE NOW!”

Figure 9

Figure 9. Our 1-h-ahead predictions for the Kp index (top, blue) and the NOAA real-time estimate (top, orange), Dst (middle), and AE (bottom).

Our Kp predictions captured the low and high values, and we even correctly predicted the maximum Dst (−400) and AE (2000) indices. Cross-correlation of our predicted Kp with the official Kp (World Data Center, 2025) yields r = 0.93 (t = 0.088) with a median error of 0.99 (Figure 10), similar to that found when training (Bala and Reiff, 2012) and when testing against the Wing model (Bala and Reiff, 2014). Similarly, our Dst prediction performed very well (r = 0.93, t = 0.001) (Figure 10, right), slightly underestimating the final Dst as retrieved from OMNIweb (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, 2025).

Figure 10

Figure 10. (Left) Correlation of our 1-h-ahead predictions for the Kp index (Figure 9) with the official World Data Center (WDC) Kp index. (Right) Correlation between predicted and official Dst indices.

5 Results

For the Heliophysics Big Year, Rice University and the Houston Museum of Natural Science reached well over 250,000 documented views in leveraged venues (teachers, museums, and planetariums), plus uncounted learners via websites and media appearances. We partnered with events arranged by NASA, Earth Science Information Partners (ESIP) Federation, Hofstra University, Space Exploration Educator Conference (SEEC), National Science Teaching Association (NSTA), and Conference for the Advancement of Science Teaching (CAST). In partnership with SwRI and NSF NCAR, we helped lead, coordinate, and participate in the Citizen CATE 2024 participatory science project. We advised on the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI). We also delivered dozens of public presentations at Rice, HMNS, Science Café, Astronomy on the National Mall, Scouts, etc., and media appearances in print, radio, web, and TV. We distributed eclipse viewers to almost one million teachers. Our total reach exceeded 1.5 million people (Reiff et al., 2025). We confirmed 5,405 teacher users of our materials. The user survey showed the materials we developed were of significant benefit and were widely disseminated by the teachers, on average reaching 500 students each.

CATE 2024 results: Of the 35 community sites, only five were clouded out. Only one of the four professional sites was clouded out, yielding 33 of 40 data-collecting sites with at least some totality eclipse imagery. Outreach teams engaged more than four thousand people in person at three sites. In total, more than 250 participants collected more than 47,000 raw eclipse images plus almost 40,000 calibration images, for 2 TB of total data, which are still being analyzed.

Space weather results: Our Kp and Dst forecasts were remarkably accurate (r = 0.93), and our social networks enabled viewers at low latitudes to view the aurora for the first time.

6 Discussion

The spectacular TSE of 2017 was marred by two situations: in the last few weeks before the eclipse, many “eclipse glasses” purchased online were found to be unsafe, and observers had difficulty finding replacements. Second (partially as a consequence), many school principals forbade their teachers from even taking their students outside during the eclipse. The substantial investment of federal funds, coupled with resources from planetariums, universities, research institutes, and private corporations combined to make the 2024 total solar eclipse probably the best-observed eclipse in human history. Lists of approved eclipse viewing equipment vendors were posted by the American Astronomical Society (AAS), with more than 100 million safe viewers produced. A major thrust to educate teachers and administrators ensured “no child left inside.” More than 32 million people lived in the path of totality in the United States—44 million, including Canada and Mexico—and an estimated 20 million more traveled to totality. The coordination and resources provided by NASA and NSF and the investments made by organizations and corporations made this eclipse one of the safest on record. Canada reported only two people with permanent eye damage. Similarly, our timely space weather predictions allowed many to view the aurora for the first time. This partnership provided a substantial fraction of the US population with the opportunity to experience at least a partial eclipse and a low-latitude aurora in safety and wonder.

Data availability statement

The datasets presented in this study can be found in online repositories. The names of the repository/repositories and accession number(s) can be found at: https://wdc.kugi.kyoto-u.ac.jp/kp/index.html, Official Kp Index data site (World Data Center), https://omniweb.gsfc.nasa.gov, NASA Solar wind data repository, and https://mms.rice.edu/forecast.html, Rice space weather predictions archive. CATE 2024 data products will be added to the NASA Solar Data Analysis Center archive (https://umbra.gsfc.nasa.gov/) after completion of processing.

Ethics statement

Ethical approval was not required for the study involving human data in accordance with the local legislation and institutional requirements. Written informed consent was not required for participation in the study. Written informed consent was obtained from the individual(s) for the publication of any potentially identifiable images or data included in this article. The social media data was accessed and analyzed in accordance with the platform’s terms of use and all relevant institutional/national regulations.

Author contributions

PR: Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Resources, Software, Supervision, Validation, Visualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review and editing. AC: Supervision, Methodology, Writing – review and editing, Resources, Validation, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Investigation. CS: Resources, Project administration, Visualization, Writing – review and editing, Conceptualization, Methodology, Supervision, Funding acquisition. CG: Methodology, Supervision, Writing – review and editing, Investigation. SK: Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Visualization, Writing – review and editing.

Funding

The authors declare that financial support was received for the research and/or publication of this article. Animations in the Totality planetarium show were funded in part by the NASA HEAT project at Rice University (grant 80NSSC21K1563). Additional funding for the show was provided by the Houston Museum of Natural Science and by MTPE, Inc. (https://www.ePlanetarium.com). Funding for additional teacher trainings and public events was provided by the NASA MMS Mission at Rice University under grant 599790Q through Southwest Research Institute’s contract NNG04EB99C. Funding for nearly a million eclipse viewers was provided by Buc-ee’s, Inc. Funding for Citizen CATE 2024 was provided by grants from the National Science Foundation (award numbers 2231658, 2308305, 2308306, 2511904, 2511905, and 2511907), NASA (grant numbers 80NSSC21K0798 and 80NSSC23K0946), and SwRI (internal award R6395).

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to Deborah Lucadia Edwards, Don Davis, Firefly Aerospace, Bethany Elliott, and Google Maps for credited figures. We also thank the many volunteers who participated in Citizen CATE 2024 – including the regional and state coordinators, lead trainers, and especially all of the team participants – and all of the contributing institutions. Reiff wishes to thank the teachers in the Rice University Master of Science Teaching program (https://mst.rice.edu) for assistance in the many outreach venues, particularly Carlton Colmenares, Deborah Lucadia Edwards and Renum Saxena.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Generative AI statement

The authors declare that no Generative AI was used in the creation of this manuscript.

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