Official Nasa Communication N99-043

Don Savage Headquarters, Washington, DC (Phone: 202/358-1547)

August 5, 1999

NOTE TO EDITORS: N99-43 NASA COVERAGE OF LAST SOLAR ECLIPSE OF THE MILLENNIUM NASA will provide spectacular pictures of the August 11 total solar eclipse - the last in this millennium - from Earth and a million miles out in space. That and other NASA experiments and activities available for coverage are summarized below: Live eclipse feed from Amasya, Turkey, from 6 a.m. until 8 a.m. EDT (current weather reports indicate at least 80% chance of good weather in Turkey on Aug. 11). The feed will NOT be on NASA TV but will be uplinked on Telstar 5, Ku transponder 11, 97 West, vertical polarity 11929 MHz downlink frequency, audio 6.2 / 6.8. Please use the following credit with this feed: "Courtesy Exploratorium/NASA" Live Shots on NASA TV on Aug. 11 from 6:15 a.m. to 11:50 a.m. EDT. Solar Researchers Steve Maran and Craig DeForest are available from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, MD, to provide commentary during the eclipse. Stations can book an interview by contacting Deanna Corridon on 301/286-0041 or Wade Sisler on 301/286-6256. Audio eclipse experiment. Scientists at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, invite ham radio operators from around the world to participate in a scientific experiment by recording signals from European radio stations during the eclipse. The purpose is to help better understand the nature of ionospheric absorption, which may lead to less radio interference in the future. Information is available at http://eclipsecast.com/ Allais global gravity experiment. This NASA experiment will observe the Aug. 11 solar eclipse in an unusual way: using a high precision state-of-the-art gravity sensor or gravitometer located at Marshall. The experiment will test the extraordinary findings of Nobel laureate Maurice Allais who detected anomalies in the movement of Foucault's Pendulum during total eclipses in the 1950s. Allais later said "this was quite inexplicable within the framework of currently accepted theories of gravity." Information

is available at: http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headlines/ast17jun99_1.htm Web resources: The San Francisco Exploratorium will present a live interactive webcast with support from NASA's Sun-Earth Connection Education Forum at: http://eclipse99.nasa.gov/ Eclipse Home Page: http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html General eclipse information: http://eclipsecast.com/ (opens August 7) Science news stories related to the eclipse: http://science.nasa.gov/ end -