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The first people who experienced solar eclipses must have looked up in fright at what covered their sun. The only thing they saw was a crown around a dark circle - the circle of the moon with bright beads along its rim. Which legends were told of that? We will never know.

For years astronomers would calculate the motions of the heavens and via arcane methods determine where the solar eclipses would be maximal. Set up their cameras and record for the five to ten minutes that it took. Some beautiful pictures were brought back which showed the hairs around the sun. The crown around the sun. The corona around the sun.

Spectroscopist came and took their measurements. Niels Bohr discovered the atom. Computers came. Satellites are now up there.

Still the pictures of the corona are haunting. Explanations abound. They are boring. The real beauty is not captured in the theories of the physicists. Who cares that it is a gas as thin as our best vacuums. It flows to outer space! It comes even to the earth if it happens to be in the right direction. Well... I must admit I like auroras too.

Learn more about this author, Paul Kuin.
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