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2023 Annual Report

Colorful eclipse

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The Sun’s corona, its outermost atmosphere, is typically only visible to the naked eye during a total solar eclipse. The SwRI-led Citizen Continental-America Telescopic Eclipse (CATE) 2024 project evaluated special cameras to measure the polarization of coronal light during the April 2023 total solar eclipse in Exmouth, Western Australia. In this image, the colors indicate the polarization or orientation of the light. The white features, called prominences, have no polarization. For the Citizen CATE 2024 project, 35 teams of community volunteers will observe the path of totality for the April 8, 2024, total solar eclipse to make an hour-long movie of the polarized light from the Sun’s corona.