• Question: what happens to your eyes when you look at the sun during an eclipse?

    Asked by wear45den to Souvik, Sabine, Maria, John, Faye, Armin on 20 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Maria McNamara

      Maria McNamara answered on 20 Nov 2019:


      When you look at a bright object such as the sun it generates an afterimage that stays in your field of vision for a few seconds to up to a minute or so. We don’t fully understand why this happens but it might be due to nerves being overstimulated. Even when the sun is eclipsing, it’s outer atmosphere or corona is visible and this can still be bright enough to damage your eyes, hence why you need special glasses to view the eclipse with.

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