Media are invited to the U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama, Thursday, Aug. 3, for a total solar eclipse training session, followed by an exclusive screening of “Black Suns: An Astrophysics Adventure,” a documentary film featuring NASA Marshall Space Flight Center astrophysicist Alphonse Sterling.
 
At 5:30 p.m., Sterling will lead a training session in the Davidson Center for Space Exploration’s National Geographic Theater to discuss the upcoming Aug. 21 total solar eclipse. The documentary screening will follow at approximately 6 p.m.
 
The event is part of Marshall and USSRC’s celebration of “Eclipse Across America” — the first total solar eclipse to span the entire continental United States since 1918. Sterling will discuss the importance of the event, his research and safety for viewing the eclipse.
 
The documentary recounts the 2012 travels of Sterling and Hakeem Oluseyi, a research professor at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, as they observed a pair of solar eclipses in Japan and Australia.
 
Sterling will be available to media for comments and interviews immediately following the screening. Admission is free and the documentary will last one hour.
 
Media interested in covering the event should contact Molly Porter at molly.a.porter@nasa.gov or 256-544-0034 no later than 5 p.m., Thursday, Aug. 3.
 
Leading up to the eclipse, USSRC will host two additional training sessions featuring Marshall scientists. The Aug. 10 training session will feature Dennis Gallagher, a space plasma physicist in Marshall’s Science Research Office, and the Aug. 17 session will feature Bill Cooke, lead for NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. Gallagher and Cooke will be available to media for comments and interviews after their sessions, respectively.
 
The U.S. Space & Rocket Center, a Smithsonian Affiliate, is home to Space Camp, Aviation Challenge and Space Camp Robotics, the Apollo 16 capsule, the National Historic Landmark Saturn V rocket and world-class traveling exhibits. The USSRC is Marshall’s official visitor center and a showcase for national defense technologies developed at the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal.
 
Molly Porter
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
molly.a.porter@nasa.gov