美国国家公共电台 NPR Go See It, Eclipse Chasers Urge. 'Your First Time Is Always Special'

 

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

On August 21, millions of people in 14 states across the country will be able to see a total solar eclipse. That's when the moon slips in front of the sun and blocks its light, creating an eerie¹, daytime twilight². This will be a once-in-a-lifetime thing for most of us. And then there are the folks who chase the eclipse experience all over the world. Here's NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce.

NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE³: To see the upcoming eclipse, all Don Liebenberg will have to do is open his front door and step outside.

DON LIEBENBERG: It's a really special treat to be able to have one in my driveway.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: In the past, he's had to trek⁴ out to places like Turkey, Zambia, China or Pukapuka, a remote island in the Pacific. How many total solar eclipses has he seen?

LIEBENBERG: Twenty-six so far.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Liebenberg is an adjunct professor of astronomy at Clemson University in South Carolina. He's been studying eclipses since 1954. He says the complete masking of the sun by the moon known as totality is normally a brief event when you see it from one spot on Earth.

LIEBENBERG: The longest eclipse time on the ground is just shy of eight minutes.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: He has always wanted more. That's why Liebenberg helped pioneer the use of airplanes to move along with the shadow of the moon as it swept over the landscape. In 1973, French officials even let him do this in the brand-new Concorde. It's streaked⁵ across North Africa to keep up with the moon's shadow.

LIEBENBERG: Now, remember; this plane is going at Mach 2 or more than a thousand miles an hour. And the eclipse is going a thousand miles an hour.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Was it scary?

LIEBENBERG: Not at all. It was beautiful.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: His view of this eclipse lasted an astonishing 74 minutes. That's one reason why Liebenberg currently holds the world record for the most time spent in totality. No one else is even close. And believe me. Some people keep track of records like this. They're called shadow lovers or umbraphiles. Glenn Schneider is an astronomer⁶ at the University of Arizona. He freely admits that he is an eclipse junkie.

GLENN SCHNEIDER: Yeah, people talk about eclipse addiction⁷. And I guess I'm probably up there on the top of eclipse addicts⁸.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: He's been to 33. Don't ask him to pick a favorite.

SCHNEIDER: I don't have a ranking. Any one of them is one of the top events in my life. It's sort of the one that I'm seeing at the moment is the best one.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: The story of how he got hooked is pretty typical. It starts with the unexpected impact of the first. As one eclipse chaser told me, your first time is always special. For Schneider, that came in 1970 when an eclipse was visible from the East Coast. He was a teenage amateur astronomer who eagerly planned out how to spend the few minutes of totality.

SCHNEIDER: I had a number of telescopes and binoculars⁹ and cameras and things all set up. And I practiced and rehearsed for months on end.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: All of that was forgotten the moment the sun blinked out.

SCHNEIDER: Staring up at that hole in the sky, I just froze. I couldn't move. It was just such an - literally¹⁰ awe-inspiring moment.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says you may intellectually understand the workings of our solar system and the vastness of time and space. But a total solar eclipse makes you feel it.

SCHNEIDER: With the darkening of the sky, the movement of the moon's shadow and you sort of at the bullseye of the confluence¹¹ of where this is happening, it really is overwhelming.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: Now, there's a total solar eclipse every 18 months on average. Schneider still laments¹² the one eclipse he didn't manage to get to. It was in 1985 in a remote, inaccessible¹³ part of Antarctica.

SCHNEIDER: That's the one that escaped - terrible thing, total solar eclipse. Nobody could see it.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: You know what else can keep you from seeing an eclipse - clouds. One lonely, little cloud wandering in at the wrong time can ruin everything. So it's not surprising that clouds never drift far from the minds of eclipse chasers. They consult historical weather charts and make contingency¹⁴ plans. Fred Espenak is a retired¹⁵ astrophysicist who's been called Mr. Eclipse. He's been to 27. And in the days leading up to this one, he'll be in Casper, Wyo.

FRED ESPENAK: If the forecast is bad for Casper, I'll be ready to travel a thousand miles east or west to get to a better location.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: What's a thousand miles to a guy who once spent 26 days on a Russian icebreaker to see an eclipse? He says his fellow eclipse chasers often bump into each other in airports in Istanbul or Beijing.

ESPENAK: We all tend to be science geeks, a good number of us.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: This next eclipse will be seen by millions of Americans, not all science geeks of course. But Espenak says it's the most beautiful, natural phenomenon anyone can experience.

ESPENAK: I have seen people witnessing their first eclipses. And after totality, they are down on their knees, weeping. (Laughter) It's just an incredibly moving event.

GREENFIELDBOYCE: So moving that somebody, maybe even you, will be instantly transformed into an umbraphile. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE ECHELON EFFECT'S "SIGNALS")

1 eerie   

adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的

参考例句：

• It's eerie to walk through a dark wood at night.夜晚在漆黑的森林中行走很是恐怖。
• I walked down the eerie dark path.我走在那条漆黑恐怖的小路上。

2 twilight   

n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期

参考例句：

• Twilight merged into darkness.夕阳的光辉融于黑暗中。
• Twilight was sweet with the smell of lilac and freshly turned earth.薄暮充满紫丁香和新翻耕的泥土的香味。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 trek   

vi.作长途艰辛的旅行；n.长途艰苦的旅行

参考例句：

• We often go pony-trek in the summer.夏季我们经常骑马旅行。
• It took us the whole day to trek across the rocky terrain.我们花了一整天的时间艰难地穿过那片遍布岩石的地带。

5 streaked   

adj.有条斑纹的，不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 )；使布满条纹

参考例句：

• The children streaked off as fast as they could. 孩子们拔脚飞跑 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• His face was pale and streaked with dirt. 他脸色苍白，脸上有一道道的污痕。 来自辞典例句

6 astronomer   

n.天文学家

参考例句：

• A new star attracted the notice of the astronomer.新发现的一颗星引起了那位天文学家的注意。
• He is reputed to have been a good astronomer.他以一个优秀的天文学者闻名于世。

7 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

8 addicts   

有…瘾的人( addict的名词复数 )； 入迷的人

参考例句：

• a unit for rehabilitating drug addicts 帮助吸毒者恢复正常生活的机构
• There is counseling to help Internet addicts?even online. 有咨询机构帮助网络沉迷者。 来自超越目标英语 第3册

9 binoculars   

n.双筒望远镜

参考例句：

• He watched the play through his binoculars.他用双筒望远镜看戏。
• If I had binoculars,I could see that comet clearly.如果我有望远镜，我就可以清楚地看见那颗彗星。

10 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

11 confluence   

n.汇合，聚集

参考例句：

• They built the city at the confluence of two rivers.他们建造了城市的汇合两条河流。
• The whole DV movements actually was a confluence of several trends.整个当时的DV运动，实际上是几股潮流的同谋。

12 laments   

n.悲恸，哀歌，挽歌( lament的名词复数 )v.（为…）哀悼，痛哭，悲伤( lament的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• In the poem he laments the destruction of the countryside. 在那首诗里他对乡村遭到的破坏流露出悲哀。
• In this book he laments the slight interest shown in his writings. 在该书中他慨叹人们对他的著作兴趣微弱。 来自辞典例句

13 inaccessible   

adj.达不到的，难接近的

参考例句：

• This novel seems to me among the most inaccessible.这本书对我来说是最难懂的小说之一。
• The top of Mount Everest is the most inaccessible place in the world.珠穆朗玛峰是世界上最难到达的地方。

14 contingency   

n.意外事件，可能性

参考例句：

• We should be prepared for any contingency.我们应该对任何应急情况有所准备。
• A fire in our warehouse was a contingency that we had not expected.库房的一场大火是我们始料未及的。

15 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。