CHACO CANYON, Recent Mexico — Solar eclipses occur in patterns that far outlast a single human life, but just occasionally it’s possible to see them echo through deep time.
Such a rare occasion was possible on Saturday, Oct. 14 at precisely 10:34 a.m. MDT when a “ring of fireside” appeared within the sky for 4 minutes 48 seconds above Chaco Culture National Park in Recent Mexico.
It hung over the traditional kiva — great houses — of the traditional Puebelon people, for whom Chaco Canyon was a middle between AD 850 and 1250. With solstice, equinox and lunar cycle markers at almost every turn, Chaco Canyon can also be home to a number of the oldest known sun-watchers.
That tradition continues today. By 6 a.m. on Oct. 14, the dark dirt road to the distant was lit by red taillights. With only 150 parking spaces within the canyon, the race was on to get to one among its archaeological sites by 9:12 a.m. to witness an extended “ring of fireside”.
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Despite the traffic, the bone-shaking bumps of road 7950 — damaged by heavy rain lower than a month ago — easily removed all traces of the twenty first century. A herd of elk greeted my wife and I, followed by park rangers handing out automobile parking permits. By 8 a.m. we were parked beside Casa Rinconada, home to the best kiva house of all.
This wasn’t the primary time an eclipse had come to Chaco. The last annular within the U.S., in 2012, was witnessed within the canyon, but several eclipses also occurred here when the ancestral Puebloan civilization was at its peak. Certainly one of them appears to have been recorded. Discovered only in 1992, the “Rock of the Sun” petroglyph is carved right into a boulder alongside other images — one possibly the planet Venus. A tangle of loops around a round object, it’s harking back to the solar corona during a complete solar eclipse.
It’s thought to represent what Pueblo people saw on July 11, 1097, when totality occurred at Chaco for five minutes 1 second. Simply to make it more convincing, the sun was particularly lively at the moment, say scientists, when huge loops and prominences were possibly visible. Totality was witnessed from Chaco again in 1194 and 1259 — when the region is assumed to have been deserted.
“If this petroglyph really is a representation of a complete solar eclipse in 1097 it’s of an event that Chacoaons couldn’t have missed — and it was at a time of high solar activity,” Cherilynn Morrow, director of the Public Engagement program embedded in NASA’s PUNCH mission, told Space.com.
She witnessed Saturday’s “ring of fireside” near the “Rock of the Sun” because the eclipse progressed above Fajada Butte, where dagger-shaped beams of sunlight appear at equinoxes and solstices. “It was a wonderful experience and we had perfect skies,” said Morrow, who conducted tours of the petroglyph panel all weekend. “It was a celebration of the sun and the moon joining and it was so uplifting.”
Because the partial eclipse progressed beyond about 50% the sunshine levels within the canyon dropped significantly together with the temperatures. A grayish light descended because the eclipse progressed. Shadows from the jagged edges of the canyon and the traditional structures turned fuzzy. Chaco Canyon can rarely have looked more dramatic.
From my observing position beside the nice kiva at Casa Rinconada the perfection of the “ring of fireside” mesmerized the 15-or-so eclipse-chasers around us who had been lucky enough to get in.
On either side of annularity, Baily’s beads were visible for a number of seconds. One observer used his camera to project a “smiley face” crescent sun onto the partitions of the traditional kiva. In the gap a big bull Elk crossed the canyon. Because the ring appeared a number of “whoops” echoed across the canyon.
Casa Rinconada is an archaeoastronomer’s playground. The eclipse occurred above a mesa upon which the Ancestral Puebloans appear to have marked the sunrise points all year long. “It’s a really sacred place for the descendants of the ancestral Puebloans and folks who made Chaco an ancient sun-watching place of a unprecedented nature,” said Morrow. “The kiva is so amazingly aligned to modern precision north, south, east and west.”
For a lot of, the day had been a culmination of a long-held ambition. “I desired to experience the ring of fireside in a location with deep archeoastronomical significance and I knew Chaco can be the proper location,” Mike Shaw, an astrophotographer who organized a workshop specifically to photograph the “ring of fireside” and witnessed it from Pueblo del Arroyo within the canyon, told Space.com.
“I felt a deep sense of belonging and sense of place,” said Shaw, who partly selected Chaco 18 months ago since it was only 0.5% of the trail width away from the central line. Consequently, the ring exhibited almost perfect circular symmetry. “The temperature dropped noticeably because the eclipse progressed and I used to be surprised at what number of birds began singing towards maximum annularity — I hadn’t noticed many songbirds in Chaco before,” Shaw continued.
The subsequent total solar eclipse observed from Chaco won’t be within the lifetimes of anyone within the canyon today. Totality from “Rock of the Sun” next happens on July 3, 2866, for 4 minutes 59 seconds, in line with the Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses, but today’s “ring of fireside” was an irresistible opportunity to be immersed in Chaco’s unique astronomical history.
With the eclipse over and the crowds deserting, the canyon emptied of individuals once more, just because it had done centuries ago soon after an eclipse. We looked for petroglyphs within the partitions and gazed on the Milky Way after sunset.
The subsequent morning the sun rose to an empty canyon. Wrens squeaked and a cottontail ran along a ledge right into a cliff dwelling. Normal service at Chaco Canyon had been resumed.