West Virginia University eclipse watch event serves as giant outdoor classroom

Apr. 9—MORGANTOWN — West Virginia Del. Mike DeVault performed a great civic service on Monday.

DeVault and his wife invited a family friend on a three hour road trip to Ohio, where the moon's shadow would travel across the earth's surface, temporarily turning day to night.

"It's something she had never seen," DeVault said. "I was kind of amazed at her interest in it. She knew a lot about it and I said, 'well, we need to get the total eclipse, that's the big enchilada.' And she was like, 'oh my god, that'd be great.'"

It's a special moment for DeVault as well, who believes this might be the last one he gets to experience. The next eclipse to hit these parts will be in the 2040s, and even then, the span will be different from this one. It made going to Ohio for totality that much sweeter of an experience, for the privilege of sharing a stellar event with both his loved one, and giving the experience to someone who's never had it before.

"It puts things in perspective that, you know, we're not in control," he said. "The Earth, the Moon, the Sun, that's a lot bigger than us."

For those who couldn't make the trip to Ohio to experience totality, West Virginia University offered a worthy alternative. Ohio is close enough to the state that although the eclipse didn't reach totality here, it still provided enough of a cosmic show to fill the entire green at the Mountainlair.

Under the twilight sky, packs of students, professors, residents and others gathered to experience what for many can be a once in a lifetime event. Although solar eclipses aren't rare, they happen roughly every 2 years, they don't repeat the same path frequently. Two or three centuries can pass before an eclipse returns to a particular area.

For humans, whole empires can rise and fall in that span.

Toward the edge of the green, curious children rolled spheres down a curved well, with a large and heavy ball sitting at the bottom. Morgan Passey used the demonstration to explain how gravity works, by curving spacetime, which was represented by the fabric being stretched by the ball.

Telescopes with sun filters were set up nearby, allowing curious onlookers to see the eclipse up close. However, interest was so high the line for the telescopes ran to the bathroom back inside the Mountainlair.

"This is a perfect time to kind of demonstrate how gravity and orbits work, because kids always have questions like, 'why are we moving? Why are things orbiting? Why are things spinning,'" Passey said. "This is a great way to answer that. It's also a really fun and accessible demonstration."

Passey is a physics major at the university, and space has been a long time passion for her. She traces that interest back to a documentary about the Hubble Space Telescope and her grandfather, who is an engineer. Both of those led her to a love for physics.

Celestial events like an eclipse serve as a good opportunity to educate about physics and astronomy. It provides an opportunity to take something complicated and break it down to more digestible pieces, such as how gravity, orbits and mass work.

On a personal level, Massey also believes it is the responsibility of humans to learn about the world around them, which is important, because superstitions can surround celestial events.

For centuries, humans have appended dark meaning to what is a dance of orbital mechanics. Political actors used the lack of understanding and fear around eclipses to sell their political goals. It's a phenomenon seen all over the world, from Asia, to mesoamerican cultures and Europe. Today, despite humanity's greater capacity to understand the world as it is, conspiracies and superstitions still proliferate at the speed of light through social media apps like TikTok.

WVU students Kaylin Amaral, 20, Andrea Cipriano, 19, and Macy Bourne laid out on the other end of the green. It was a nice day, and each had procured the necessary glasses to view the eclipse, before the school's supply was depleted earlier in the day.

Aside from being a break from the drudgery of class, it was also an opportunity to experience something special on what had turned into a beautiful day.

Cipriano, a sophomore, was out despite misgivings from her mother, who is an avid TikTok viewer. One TikTok making the rounds claims that a group on the other side of the world was going to fire a beam toward the eclipse during totality. The intent was to open portals to a new world which would cause an earthquake to split the United States.

The U.S. is still in one piece.

Despite that, Cipriano's mother believed the prediction was a real possibility. However, Cipriano thinks it's understandable given the uncertain state of the world in the last few years. An eclipse can become something that serves as a stand-in for the fears people have, who need some way to express their anxiety.

Amaral, a sophomore, pointed out that people have a harder time understanding each other anymore. This creates uncertainty as well, which can lead people to think disasters are possible. Although the notion of a beam causing an earthquake is ridiculous, she understands those fears are an expression of a deeper unease pervading society at the moment.

"I feel some superstitions, they're OK," Cipriano said. "They're funny to think about, like the pyramids being built by aliens, all these fun things that are not actually plausible. But when people suddenly decide the world's going to end over a natural phenomenon that's happened for millions of years, it's going too far. Especially with how the world has been the last couple years, it could be dangerous to make people fear for their lives."

Susie Paine, a physics grad student, said the goal of a lot of conspiracy theories like the one found on TikTok is to make their audience afraid. Fear drives people to spread misinformation.

"Chinese emperors paid a lot of money to get astronomers to predict when the next eclipse would happen so they could plan important things while the eclipse is happening and be like, 'look at my power,'" Paine said. "Politicians have always used scientific events to further their own ends. Eclipses are a really dramatic way to do that. They're very visible, everybody could see them."

Paine added that conspiracy theories are seductive because they're easy to believe compared to the hard work science demands, which is doing the research required to arrive at the truth.

"Science is complicated, but the more you give up your critical thinking the more you let other people think for you," Paine said. "The less control you have over your own life."

However, for Cipriano, Amaral and Bourne, Monday's eclipse was less something to fear and more something to marvel at. Cipriano thinks about her place in the cosmos frequently. Even though she realizes she is less than miniscule when it comes to the scope of the universe, there is still a sense of grandeur and awe she is struck by when she witnesses cosmic phenomenon like the eclipse.

Which is why she called for the most sensible course of action, which was to sit out on a nice day with friends and enjoy the event.

Amaral, a sophomore, echoed Cipriano's thoughts.

"This is a really cool experience that we're able to witness, I mean we don't really know what's out there," she said. "We may never know but eventually, hopefully people are gonna figure it out. I think this is a really cool experience we're all able to share and we're lucky to experience things like this."

Vanessa Bourne, Macy's 11-year-old sister, was much more succinct.

"It's awesome."

Reach Esteban at efernandez@timeswv.com