The United States will see a total solar eclipse next year.

At Western Kentucky University, a team is working on an app to help us learn more about the sun.

Nassar is now involved.

It's the ultimate science project and you're invited to take part.

Witnessing a total solar eclipse as an experience like no other.

There are two classes of people in the world.

Those who have seen one and all of it, and those who are going to see one and be in awe of it.

It was amazing.

Everything went dark and the birds went quiet.

The last time an eclipse was visible from the United States was in 2017.

It was, I mean, really a life changing experience.

And in April 2024 will see one again.

Understanding the shape of the sun can actually tell us a lot about the natural world.

A group of WQ students and professors are using that opportunity to learn more about the shape of the sun to an accuracy and measure never known before, but will.

Also tell us a lot about gravitational waves, the way that gravity works in general.

We might be able to refine certain theories of gravity, go beyond what Newton laid out a long time ago.

Students in the extended Reality Research lab are developing and designing the Sun Sketcher app.

They're coming together and wonderful team to put together an experience to rival that of the eclipse itself.

If you've ever seen a solar eclipse, you know, that's the complete human experience.

It's not just science is art, it's history, it's culture.

And we're trying to replicate that at some sketcher.

They hope volunteers will download the free app to record the Sun's movement from their unique vantage points along the Eclipse Center line.

A big part of my role in the team is managing how we are going to collect that data from users and get it back to a central location where it can be stored and processed.

Sun Sketcher will track the eclipse over a 2000 mile path that takes an hour to traverse.

What makes our research useful is that we have so many users.

Using the app is that we're going to get hopefully millions of data points across the United States.

We've been kind of doing this kind of wing and a prayer using money we phone, not coincidentally, to pay for things.

That was until the group wrote a grant proposal to NASA and months later learned their proposal had been approved.

Out of the blue.

I got called up when I was at home and they were like, Can you come back into work?

We need to talk about something really important.

And so I come in and they say.

So we just got an ACA funding.

But this opened up a whole new set of possibilities to really do this properly.

The group will head to Odessa, Texas, in October for an annular solar eclipse.

You don't get a lot of chances to test something like this because we have to have an eclipse to be able to test it.

That will help the sense get your team confirm the app is working properly before it's officially deployed in April.

No one person can do this.

They've tried chasing eclipses in airplanes, but even an airplane can't keep up with that fast.

The only way to make the data we need is to have an array of observers spread out all on the eclipse path.

Anyone with a smartphone can contribute, and they hope millions will show up To participate in.

This eclipse is going to happen.

Whether we're ready or not, we will be ready.

But unlike a lot of universe you type projects, well, can I have a two week extension?

Not on this one.

We have to be ready and we'll be ready.

And the deadline is coming when the total solar eclipse crosses North America on April eight, 2024.

For Kentucky Edition.

I'm Laura Rogers.

Thank you, Laura.

We have our calendars marked.

You can learn more at Sun sketcher dot org.

The app goes live a few weeks before the April eclipse.

The total eclipse will be visible in Paducah and southwestern Kentucky.