For more information about the total solar eclipse on April 8, including where to watch, start time and events happening around San Antonio, check out our guide.
For those who can’t see the upcoming total solar eclipse, it might be heard.
On April 8, the moon will pass between the Earth and the sun, completely blocking out the face of the sun as the moon casts a shadow onto the Earth. Learn more about the eclipse at our FAQ here.
It can get eerily quiet during the astronomical phenomenon, according to NASA.
But it can still be experienced by people with visual impairments thanks to the work of UTSA astronomy and physics students, who assembled 30 LightSound devices, or iPhone-sized devices created by Harvard University astronomers that converts light into sound.
About 25 UTSA students spent an entire day in September soldering and building the sound devices, said Lindsay Fuller, an assistant professor of instruction and eclipse project manager at UTSA.
Astronomer Allyson Bieryla, who helped invent the device and develop the LightSound Project for the 2017 Great American Eclipse, provided all the materials to UTSA as part of a goal to provide at least 750 devices nationwide for the April 8 event.
The device uses a technique called sonification, which is the process of converting data, or light intensity in this case, to sound. As the moon eclipses the sun and sunlight dims, the musical tone emitted by the device changes.
The rectangle box covers are 3-D printed and come in a variety of colors.
“It honestly is pretty fun,” Fuller said. “I have a pair of speakers in my office and sometimes I’ll just hook up the device and just stick it in the sun.”
When she puts it in the sun, the device makes a clicking sound. “But once you put it in the sun, there’s this high-pitched hum,” she said.
Using the LightSound
The university distributed the devices to groups throughout San Antonio, such as Vibrant Works and Owl Radio, before the annual solar eclipse on Oct. 14.
Owl Radio, a project of the Low Vision Resource Center, broadcast the LightSound audio for people with vision loss last year.
The nonprofit estimates that more than 800,000 Texans have difficulty reading due to vision impairment, and in Bexar County, nearly 15,000 people are blind or visually impaired.
Lisa Miele, executive director of the Low Vision Resource Center, said the LightSound device is an amazing concept.
But last year, when Owl Radio transmitted the sound of the eclipse, listeners did not understand what they were hearing and thought the station had gone off the air. It was an epic fail, Miele said, that they don’t plan to repeat.
Instead, Owl Radio will promote on its website the LightSound Project’s live stream of the eclipse sound, she said, though those plans are still being worked out.
When UTSA’s Fuller isn’t focused on the LightSound Project, she is working on another kind of audio project related to the eclipse.
The project, called Eclipse Soundscapes, is NASA-funded and seeks to record the sounds of animals and insects during the eclipse. “Because it’s known that some specific species of animals and insects will change their behavior during the eclipse,” Fuller said.
She has made presentations at state parks and other outdoor recreational areas about eclipse-related animal behavior.
Also through Eclipse Soundscape, Fuller is partnering with educators in Uvalde, Eagle Pass and Del Rio, all within the path of totality, to provide eclipse and science materials for young students there.
In addition, Fuller has provided a biologist at Sul Ross State University in Alpine with five recording devices to be used at different sites to record animal and insect sounds during the event.
But you don’t have to be a scientist to record the sounds. Eclipse Soundscapes is also inviting the public to collect observations and data during the event and submit them via a web form here.
