The eclipse creates favourable conditions for the experiment by highlighting the solar corona.

A group of Italian scientists will take advantage of tomorrow’s (12 August) solar eclipse to test a new tool that could shed more light on our understanding of the sun.

The team’s ‘Circular Slit Spectrometer’, funded by the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, is designed to capture the spectrum of the entire solar corona – the outer layer of the sun’s atmosphere – in a single photograph. This has been previously impossible.

The device has a circular slit that enables this when placed at a certain distance from the centre of the sun, explained principal investigator Federico Landini of the Astrophysical Observatory of Turin. It offers an upgrade over previous instruments that took hours to scan the corona, when its movements change in minutes.

The Italian scientists journeyed to Spain’s Javalambre Astrophysical Observatory via road last Friday to set up the time-sensitive experiment that will run for a short period at around 8.30pm local time tomorrow.

The eclipse creates favourable conditions for the experiment by hiding the sun behind the moon, highlighting the solar corona. This outer portion of the sun emits powerful coronal mass ejections and solar winds, which have a major impact on communications networks and power grids on Earth.

“There is neither space nor time for the unexpected,” senior researcher Paola ​Zuppella from the ⁠Institute for Photonics and Nanotechnologies in Padua told Reuters.

Meanwhile, the general public in Ireland can enjoy tomorrow’s once-in-a-lifetime total eclipse through a number of scheduled gatherings across the country.

The eclipse is set to start at around 6.15pm, reach its maximum an hour later and end at around 8.08pm. It will be the largest eclipse visible from Ireland until 2090 and will offer viewers in Europe the opportunity to witness the eclipse as the sun sets.

Cork is best-positioned for watching the eclipse in the country, with 96pc of the sun expected to be covered at its peak. Around 94pc of the sun will be covered in Dublin and 93pc in Belfast.

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