![]() The light-sensitive cells that provide detailed color daylight vision, such as the cone cells, absorb light via photoreceptors and then translate that signal into an electrical impulse that is sent to the brain and perceived as a visual signal, Chou said.īut during a solar eclipse, "there's so much light hitting those cells that it actually disrupts the parts of the light-sensitive cells that are responsible for that transduction into a nervous signal," Chou said. Whenever someone stares at the sun, light from the sun hits the eye and focuses at the machinery called the fovea, which is located at the back of the eye. During these rare events, people know they are watching something special and essentially force themselves to look, he said. However, for once-in-a-blue-moon events like a total solar eclipse, "it's possible for you to override that aversion reflex," Chou said. "Our brains are wired to avoid looking at very, very bright things like the sun," Chou said. Usually, people will glance at the sun and then look away quickly. ![]() The difference is that most of us have a natural reflex to look away from the sun if we stare too long. Staring at the sun during a solar eclipse isn't much different from staring at the sun during a normal day. (This summer's Great American Solar Eclipse will last about 3 hours, depending on where you're viewing it from.) However, there's a simple way to avoid going blind: Wear protective gear when looking at a solar eclipse, he added. It's difficult to assess how common these injuries are, since only a few studies have attempted to systematically count solar eclipse blindness. "You end up possibly getting enough damage that you can no longer see things that are really, really fine in detail," Chou told Live Science. However, this type of damage, called solar retinopathy, will not typically make a person completely blind, he said. Ralph Chou, a professor emeritus of optometry at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. Though it sounds like an old wives' tale, there are more than 100 documented cases of serious and permanent eye damage that was due to people staring too long at a solar eclipse, said B. 21, the sun will be completely blacked out for a period of 2 minutes and 4 seconds, and the moon will block at least part of the sun for roughly 3 hours.īut can people really go blind from looking at a solar eclipse?
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