Jay Pasachoff Death, Obituary – On November 20, the astronomer Jay Pasachoff passed away following a valiant and prolonged battle against cancer. Williams College, which is found in Williamstown, Massachusetts, had been his home for the better part of the preceding half century, and he had spent that time serving as the department chair there. Before that, he had devoted the majority of his professional life to instructing students at Williams College. It is likely that the expeditions that Pasachoff led to observe solar eclipses were the ones that brought him the most notoriety in the world of science.
The fact that no other living human being has ever seen a greater number of total eclipses lends credence to the allegation that he has seen 66 of them while traveling to their respective paths of totality. No other living human being has ever witnessed a greater number of total eclipses. It was one of the many scientific phenomena that he attempted to explain, and it was one of the many scientific projects that he undertook. One of these phenomena was known as the “black drop.” When this happens, the dark silhouette of a planet that is transiting the Sun (like Venus or Mercury, for example) appears to extend just as the beginning or ending of the transit is taking place.
This optical phenomenon was a nuisance that thwarted multiple attempts made in the 18th century to quantify the duration of such transists and, as a result, establish the scale of the distances in the solar system. [Citation needed] [Citation needed] [Citation needed] [Citation needed] [Citation needed] [Citation needed] [C [Further citation is required] [Further citation is required] [Further citation is required] [Further citation is required] [Further citation is required] [Further citation is required] [C [There must be additional citations for this] [There must be additional citations for this] [There must be additional citations for this]
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