On Aug. 21, at a little after 1 in the afternoon, the skies darkened over the University of Chicago.
As the moon made a rare trip across the sun, students, staff and alumni gathered on the Quads, behind the Eckhart Research Center, and in a field at the Laboratory Schools as “Total Eclipse of the Heart” rang across campus from the Rockefeller Memorial Chapel carillon.
For Chemistry professor Yamuna Krishnan, the historic day reminded her of a childhood eclipse event in India that inspired her career in science.
“My dad called me out to look at the eclipse using a strip of film negative,” said Krishnan, who joined more than 200 others to watch the eclipse in the Eckhardt Research Center courtyard. “That’s my first memory of an eclipse, and it’s really what got me interested in science. It just made all the stuff of textbooks, real.”