A Total Solar Eclipse Leaves a Nation in Awe

CHARLESTON, S.C. — The United States basked in the glory of a total eclipse on Monday, as the moon’s shadow swept from the rocky beaches of Oregon to the marshes of South Carolina.

Over an hour and a half, along a 70-mile-wide ribbon of land, in tiny towns like Glendo, Wyo., and metropolises like Nashville, on dirt roads and superhighways, in modest yards and grand national parks, coastal lowlands and high mountains, the world appeared to hush for a few minutes as the moon stood up to the sun, perfectly blocking its fierce light except for the corona, the halo of hot gas that surrounds it.

This was totality, an event that had not happened in the continental United States since 1979 and had not traversed such a broad swath of the country in nearly a century.

The weather cooperated along much of the eclipse’s path, which included parts of 14 states. Scientists in Salem, Ore., who had gambled that skies would be clear, were not disappointed. They shouted and hugged each other as totality ended, knowing that their cameras and other instruments — many of them meant to gain a better understanding of the mysterious corona — captured the eclipse under ideal conditions.

“This was absolutely fabulous,” said Jay Pasachoff, an astronomer at Williams College and one of the leading eclipse watchers in the world, who led the scientific team in Salem. “As perfect as possible.” There would be plenty of data to keep his graduate students occupied, he added with a grin.

But clouds affected viewing in some places, easing up briefly to offer a glimpse of totality in Beatrice, Neb., and Kansas City, Mo., and obscuring it completely in Charleston.