Western Kentucky University SunSketcher App collects eclipse data
BOWLING GREEN, KY.- Western Kentucky University students and volunteers went all over from Texas to Indiana to collect data from the solar eclipse. They used the SunSketcher app that will measure the size of the sun.
The professor, Greg Arbuckle tells us “The data for us is a bunch of photographs. Each phone took 101 photographs, and so those photographs are currently being uploaded. We had about 32,000 phones then ended up being used during the eclipse.”
We have a measurement of the sun but it is only a few thousand kilometers with data from the past, but with new data the measurement of the sun will be more accurate.
Starr May, the database and network developer says, “The data that SunSketcher collects, even though the photos might not be super pretty or super esthetically pleasing, is extremely scientifically valuable, and all of these photos together are going to comprise a data set that will allow us to get the most accurate measurement for the shape of the sun.”
In total, volunteers that used the app took 3.2 million photos that will help today’s scientists and physicists. Andrea Florence one of the test engineers says, it will also impact the future.
People who watched the eclipse put on glasses, and once the moon cross the sun, the experience is over, but for engineers, their research has just begun.
“This is the first test, right? So we are just getting going with this, so we’re going to be measuring this multiple times. So what that’ll do is allow us to see exactly how the sun does change over its life cycle or solar cycle.”
Using the SunSketcher app is like a science experiment anyone can be apart of. The next test will be August 26th. For more information download the SunSketcher App.
