Even with eclipse glasses, experts advise avoiding directly viewing the forthcoming total solar eclipse in Western Australia to avoid lasting eye injury or blindness.
Up to 50,000 people are anticipated to arrive in the state’s northwest on April 20 to view a total solar eclipse in Exmouth and a partial eclipse in the nearby locations.
Eclipse Glasses Risk Permanent Eye Injury
The Department of Health and the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) have both issued warnings that looking directly at a total or partial eclipse might result in potentially irreparable eye damage.
Only viewing an eclipse indirectly, such as through a pinhole viewer or a live stream, was advised, according to them. Eclipse glasses should not be used to directly view a solar eclipse, according to ARPANSA.
Notwithstanding Australian and international regulations for solar filters, according to Stuart Henderson, Associate Director of Ultraviolet Radiation Measurements, there are still concerns.
One of the relatively few easily accessible locations where the total solar eclipse will be viewed is Exmouth.
Ophthalmologist Steve Colley warned that although the total solar eclipse would only last for 62 seconds, it is crucial that people heed the warning since lasting harm could be done very rapidly.
They might also not be able to feel the harm it is doing to their eyes, he added. 45 persons showed up at the Eye Casualty of Leicester Royal Hospital in the UK after the solar eclipse in August 1999.
Four of them were still exhibiting focal retinal burn symptoms seven months later.
In 58 individuals in Türkiye who presented with eye injury following the eclipse in April 1976, another investigation was conducted.
It was discovered that while significant eyesight gains were observed in the first month, any damage that persisted after 18 months remained unchanged 15 years afterward.
Read more: California teacher sucked out of the classroom during tornado hit caught in a video
April 2024’s Rare Total Solar Eclipse
Meanwhile, a total solar eclipse will be visible in 12 US states on January 1 of the following year, when the moon will pass in front of the sun.
According to NASA, the complete solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, will just miss Tennessee’s northwest corner as it crosses Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, and Maine on its way across the United States.
Those people who witnessed the previous complete solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, may have the opportunity to experience it again in their lifetime. It took that one 99 years to travel the country end to end.
Asper NASA, a total solar eclipse occurs when the moon moves in front of the sun and Earth and fully obscures the sun’s face. A total eclipse will be visible to those who are in the moon’s shadow when it strikes Earth.
The moon will look like a huge black disk and the sky will grow darker as if it were day or dusk. The only kind of solar eclipse in which observers can briefly take off their eclipse glasses is a total solar eclipse, during which the moon fully blocks the sun.
Read more: The biggest reason why TikTok became US national concern
