A COMING ECLIPSE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 102, 4 May 1929, Page 21

A COMING ECLIPSE

SCIENTISTS PREPARE

Aii expedition of extraordinary- scientific interest set out from England at the end of February, when the steamer Laomedon loft. Liverpool with observers and instruments from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, on board. There will bo a total eclipse of the sun on 9th Hay, to be seen from a track that lies in the. Indian Ocean sonth of Madagascar in the west, and crosses Sumatra, the Malay States, Siam, Cambodia, and the Philippines in the cast Duration of totality will bo five minutes on the central line, and it is this long duration which justifies the immense preparations that have been made for the expedition. The expedition (says the London "Daily Chronicle"), is being conducted by Dr. John Jackson, chief assistant of the Royal Observatory, and Dr. Carroll, assistant director of the Solar Physics Observatory at Cambridge, who aro taking their party to Alor Star, in Kcdah, Malay Peninsula. Ten tons or! scientific instruments— including the giant astrographie tclescopo from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, which alone weigh three tons—have been carefully packed in a hundred eases for the use of the observers. AH have been insured for many thousands of pounds against loss or accident. One of Die chief objects of the expedition is to obtain a more accurate verification of L"instein's conclusions, which afiirm that rays of light are bent out of their course when passing near the edge of the sun.