Dance music fans love a good disco ball, and apparently, astronomers do too. A new paper published in the academic journal Physics Education makes the case for “why every observatory needs a disco ball.”
The paper’s authors, seven European university scientists in astronomy and solar physics, contend that “commercial disco balls provide a safe, effective and instructive way of observing the Sun.”
After exploring the optics of solar projections with disco balls through several tests, researchers found that the shiny decorative orbs are excellent for viewing partial solar eclipses…