Quote:
Originally Posted by masraum
It's interesting, I remember hearing when I was younger "don't look at a solar eclipse because it's more dangerous than looking at the sun and the corona is brighter" or something like that. I remember when I was told that thinking, "WTH are they talking about. When you look at the sun, you see the sun AND the corona so how could the corona minus the sun actually be worse?" I see now that has changed and it's now perfectly safe to look at the fully eclipsed sun as long as you don't do it until it is completely eclipsed. I'm sure the warning before was probably more about keeping folks from looking at it just before and just after when it is still dangerous.
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Yes and no.
What is dangerous about an eclipse is that the *intensity* of the sunlight does not drop off, but the *accumulated* light does. What that means is, the total light from the Sun drops off (everything gets darker) but the intensity of energy per square millimeter entering your eye does not change. Our eyes have very weak pain sensors that are calibrated to make you turn away when the *accumulated* light is too high, but they don't feel the *intensity* of the light, which is what actually burns the surface of your retina. So, during an eclipse, there is some point when you could stare right at the partially covered Sun and your flinch reflex will not make you turn away, so you can get severe retinal burns.
It's VERY important to make sure that younger kids DO NOT LOOK UP. They will want to, and the body's natural protection instincts might not protect them.