Trump Briefly Glanced at Eclipse without Protective Glasses

Donald Trump’s persona as a man who doesn’t like to be told what to do feeds into the spread of this image of him staring directly at the eclipse without protective glasses. I’ve seen it portrayed as if an aide warned Trump not to do it, and then he immediately did it anyway, on impulse. Naturally I investigated. Recalling the still photo taken of Trump appearing to ignore his own wife while the Obamas embraced affectionately (a still that does not accurately represent the incident, since immediately after that still was taken Trump went to his wife), I investigated. Plenty…

NASA: No, The Eclipse Won’t Blind Pets

I once heard a fellow grad student say Galileo went blind because the the Church tortured him, I said no, he went blind because he looked at the sun through a telescope. Turns out both stories are myths. Galileo did go partially blind from cataract and glaucoma in his 70s. “Galileo was well aware of the dangers of direct solar observations and seems to have predominantly used the projection technique after initially observing at sunrise and sunset” (Astronomy Journal). “On a normal day your pets don’t try to look at the sun and therefore don’t damage their eyes, so on…