If you’re planning on viewing the next solar eclipse this upcoming June, you should invest in a pair of solar eclipse glasses. Children and adults alike don’t take the warnings about looking at a solar eclipse without glasses seriously. If you decide to chance it and look directly at the solar eclipse without glasses, you will risk solar eclipse blindness.
When you stare directly at a solar eclipse, you can burn your retina. The light damages and destroys cells in the retina. This is the part of the eye that sends signals of what you’re seeing to the brain. Once this area is damaged, you won’t receive complete or proper signals.
Symptoms of Solar Eclipse Blindness:
- Distorted vision
- Altered color vision
- Loss of central vision
The problem with solar eclipse blindness is that you will have no idea it’s happened until hours or days after the eclipse is over. There is absolutely no pain involved with this sort of damage to the eye. You won’t even know it’s happening until it’s too late. Doctors say that the damage is done in less than 120 seconds.
Once your eye suffers solar eclipse blindness, there is very little a doctor can do to help. There are no medical procedures to reverse or reduce the effects of eclipse blindness. Some sufferers do report some improvement over 18 months, however, any lingering problems are going to become permanent.
Preventing Solar Eclipse Blindness
Rather than suffer something like eclipse blindness unnecessarily, you should take precautions when viewing the next solar eclipse. You can rely on homemade or makeshift versions of eclipse glasses.
- Welder’s glasses
- Mylar filters
- Pinhole projection device
Or, you can do what is recommended and buy a pair of solar eclipse glasses. These glasses are specially designed to block out the sun’s UV rays and prevent damage to the retina.
Some people wonder why they can’t just wear regular sunglasses when looking at the solar eclipse. This is because most sunglasses are made of either glass or plastic. They only block out 10-20% of daylight and UV rays. Visible light is still able to pass through the lenses and damage your eyes.
Solar eclipse glasses work differently. They are 100,000 times darker than regular sunglasses. They are made of a black polymer and are infused with carbon particles. Which enables them to block out 100% of all UV rays and nearly all visible light.
Make sure your solar eclipse glasses are legitimate. If you buy and wear glasses that are not legitimate solar eclipse glasses, it is as if you are wearing no safety eye wear at all.
You can easily identify proper solar eclipse glasses by the label that states they are certified safe by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). If you invest in a pair of solar eclipse glasses, you can use them over and over again. As long as they don’t get scratched or torn, there is no reason why you can’t reuse them indefinitely. So, if you still have a pair from the solar eclipse in 2017, hold on to them. You’re going to need them next June. If you don’t have your pair yet, get online and buy a pair today.
Get the latest news about the Sun at NASA.
