Scientists may have overstated eclipse risk.
This afternoon, as the moon’s shadow slanted across the United States of America, millions upon millions of people within the centermost line of its path gazed up at totality, the most extraordinary sight that nature has to offer, here on Earth and perhaps in the universe at large. During the Great American Eclipse of 2017, totality left me awestruck. This year, outside the total-eclipse zone, was a more muted affair: On The Atlantic’s rooftop terrace in Washington, D.C., we dutifully slipped on cardboard glasses, watched the orange hole-punch sun become a thin fingernail clipping, and went back inside. No one descended into a feral Dionysian state or even so much as gasped. A non-total eclipse just doesn’t stir up many feelings. In the immediate aftermath, the sun went on shining, and it occurred to me that the weeks of breathless alarm about eclipse safety may have been more intense than the celestial spectacle itself.
In parts of the country, at least, the eclipse activated a pronounced strain of safetyism in American culture. School officials sent surprisingly panicked emails: One from the staff at P.S. 29 in Brooklyn asked parents to be sure to be at pickup on time and to “exit the schoolyard quickly” ahead of the “extremely dangerous” eclipse. Many school districts in Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey announced that they would dismiss students early. In other states, they closed altogether. I’ve heard reports of scared parents vowing to keep their kids locked inside for the duration of the eclipse. To be fair, these were also centered in Brooklyn, but media outlets elsewhere struck a comically fearful tone too. An article on the website of NBC’s Charleston affiliate offered tips on how to cope with eclipse anxiety, including deep-breathing exercises and a few practice rounds of putting on eclipse glasses.
Eclipse fear has long stalked our species in one form or another. Shakespeare described an eclipse as an omen, a stain on the sun that “portend[s] no good.” Milton compared totality’s pale light to Lucifer’s tarnished glow. When the sun blackens in the Book of Revelation, nature itself unravels; stars fall, and mountain ranges come unmoored. According to Ojibwe oral tradition, people once shot flaming arrows into the eclipsed sun to try to bring about its reignition. Today, scientific explanations for eclipses abound, but a bit of the ancient dread lingers. It’s just laundered now into the distinctive patois of helicopter parenting and psychotherapy.
Article after article quotes very serious scientists claiming that glancing up at an eclipse for only a few seconds could cause permanent eye damage. For visual creatures like us, this is a potent and terrifying warning, but it may exaggerate the actual risk. A sustained stream of solar photons will indeed destroy the retina’s sensitive cells, but that danger isn’t exclusive to an eclipse. It’s present on every clear day. In normal times, most of us—except for Andrew Huberman disciples—don’t need specific instructions to avoid looking at the sun, but the partially eclipsed sun is thought to be more tempting. Its dimmer light encourages the pupil to dilate, leaving its cells vulnerable to ultraviolet light in the precise place where the eye discerns fine detail in a beautiful landscape or face.
Today’s eclipse was a useful test case for the reality of these dangers. NASA estimated that 99 percent of Americans live in a place where the sun was partially obscured. Assume that more than half of the country’s 336 million people were under cloudy skies, or otherwise occupied indoors. That leaves more than 100 million people, and not all of them are inclined to dutifully obey the edicts of public-health officials. Some significant fraction of Americans will always refuse vaccines and continue to text and drive. Millions, if not tens of millions, of people likely chanced a naked-eye glance at the fractional sun. If only a few seconds of exposure can cause permanent damage, a whole bunch of people would have wrecked their retinas today, and also during previous eclipses.
But mass retinal-casualty events are difficult to find, in either news reports or the scientific literature. In 1991, an eclipse was viewed by almost 50 million people in Mexico. Only 21 moderate cases of solar retinitis were reported, and all patients said that they recovered after four months. Eight years later, when an eclipse slashed through Europe’s heart, only 147 people in France reported eye damage. Widespread eye injuries didn’t seem to follow the Great American Eclipse of 2017, either. Nor, according to some very informal polling on my part, do many of us have a friend, or even a friend of a friend, whose vision suffered afterward.
Maybe eclipse risk is a tiny bit overhyped; there’s still little harm in erring on the careful side when looking at the sun. And maybe these warnings have another purpose too, as a secularized, medical way of expressing the sun’s majesty. Helios and Ra and other sun gods of antiquity have fallen out of favor, but there remains ample justification for solar worship. The sun anchors us in place. It illuminates our world. In most food chains, its light is the first link. We no longer kneel before it or offer up blood sacrifices. Instead, when the eclipse comes around, we perform a small ritual and tell ourselves a slightly exaggerated story: Don’t even peek at the sun without special eyewear; its light is so awesomely powerful, it will burn straight through your eyes.
