AOL Showcases 15 Eclipse Photos Spanning 175 Years as Today's Solar Eclipse Draws Millions
Updated
Updated · AOL · Aug 12
AOL Showcases 15 Eclipse Photos Spanning 175 Years as Today's Solar Eclipse Draws Millions
2 articles · Updated · AOL · Aug 12
Summary
AOL published a 15-photo retrospective tracing nearly 175 years of solar eclipses, tying today’s widely watched eclipse to breakthroughs in astronomy and the evolution of eclipse photography.
The collection highlights how brief totality enabled discoveries otherwise hidden by daylight, from the first successful eclipse photograph in 1851 to the 1882 detection of Comet Tewfik near the darkened Sun.
Several featured eclipses reshaped science directly: 1860 images helped prove solar prominences belong to the Sun, while 1919 and 1922 expeditions tested and reinforced Einstein’s general relativity.
Later entries show eclipses becoming mass spectacles and advanced research platforms, including Concorde’s 74-minute chase in 1973, the 350 million viewers of the 1999 eclipse, and the U.S. coast-to-coast event in 2017.