On monday the total Solar Eclipse. It will be the 27th one hes observed in person, by far the most of anyone alive today. Mr. Reboundenberg, for the view ers out there who will be witnessing this total Solar Eclipse for first time, whats your favorite moment of the tot al Solar Eclipse and what are you looking forward to on monday donald well what happens as the First Contact or the first bite of the sun is, taken out by the moon, is the air begins to cool, the sky begins to darken. And what happens when the second contact occurs or the onset of totality, i am always impressed because from early times people have been able to make calculations predicting where this and when this Solar Eclipse will occur. So its a remarkable its remarkable that the mathematics and geography now fit together in such a way that the precise spot on the earth, where you can see the eclipse, is known well in advance. So that is impressive. Then the corona shows up and thats a beautiful sight, a blue white against a dark background. Its unlike anything that people have seen before, a National Phenomena of spectacular proportions. Host what are you collecting when you observe this type of phenomenon . Donald well, were looking to understand the energy input into the corona. The surface of the sun is about 5,600degrees. Of course the interior of the sun, where heat is generated in the nuclear process you would expect then that from thermodynamics that heat flows from hot to cold and beyond the photosphere it would cool off even more but that doesnt happen. The chrome sphere is about 30,000 degrees and the corona is a million degrees and more. So the question is how does that happen . And the answer is being known in various ways now because were dealing with a plasma, which is the fourth state of matter. We know about gases and liquids and solids but plasmas are where atoms have lost electrons and become charged, and the electron s are nearby but not connected and so you have this plasma material. And misplays are pretty well plasmas are pretty well controlled by Magnetic Fields. So the local fields on the sun shape the corona, white light corona they should see the electrons, and the Magnetic Fields also shape the ions. And what im looking at the a mission line from the ions. Host and why is it important to know about plasma . What can we do with that information . Donald well, one of the things that was observed in 1859 was a white light flair on the surface of the sun. Now, these are very infrequent but they have been seen since then. The solar wind, as we know it now it takes about four days to reach from the sun to the earths orbit. This white light flair institut ed what we now know as a coronal mass ejection. And that took 17 1 2 hours to reach the earth. And what had happened in the london area was to produce a bright aurora which extended down towards the equator. And in london it melted telegraph wires. It shocked the people at the telegraph operators. And it put sparks flying off of metal rods. So it was a very significant effect. And more recently, in july of 2012, such a double coronal mass ejection occurred and it came into the earths orbit at a place where the earth had been a week earlier. If we had been in that spot when this coronal mass ejection hit, it would have killed the astronauts onboard the spacecraft. It would have disabled most of the satellites. And it would have reeked havoc with the electrical grid system in this country and around the world. So we would like to understand the mechanism for the occurrence of these severe storms. Smaller storms appear every day. And the heating of the corona is still not completely settled but it has to do with, we believe, the magnetic waves and fields that are available from active regions on the sun. Host well donald liebenberg, we appreciate your time. Donald youre welcome. And washington journal kicks off our coverage at 7 00 at Nasas GoddardSpace Flight Center outside washington at noon we join nasa tv as they provide live views of the eclipse shadow passing over north america. At 4 00, viewer reaction to this rare Solar Eclipse over the continental united states. Watch also on cspan. Org or list en on the free cspan radioapp. Weve been on the road meeting winners of this years student cam video documentary competition. At Royal Oak High School in royal oak, michigan, first place winner jared clark won 3,000 for his documentary on the rising costs of pharmaceutical drugs. And the second place prize of 1 ,500 went to classmate mary for her documentary on mass incarceration and sentencing. Also, the third place winner won a prize of 750 for her documentary on gender inequality and grace novak won an Honorable Mention prize of 250 for her documentary on the relationship between the police and the media thank you to all the students who participated in our 2017 student cam video documentary competition. To watch any of the videos, go to studentcam. Org and student cam 2018 starts in september with the theme the constitution and you. Were asking students to choose any provision of the u. S. Constitution and create a video illustrating why the provision is important. Next, the future of Big Data Analytics with a Stanford University scientist analyzing an individuals personality traits based on their social media activities. Also, how these profiles have been used in business as well as politics, including our president ial campaign and brexit voting. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] tonight were going to explore one of the most important facts about our present and future. Largescale Data Collection and analysis has and will continue to profoundly change politics in the development and most especially the developed world. Increasingly, private firms