Technologies

NASA Leans Into Solar Eclipse With 3 Rocket Launches: Here’s What’s Up With That

The space agency isn’t letting today’s solar eclipse go to waste.

We’re just hours away from North America’s last total solar eclipse until 2044, and as we prepare to look to the sky, NASA is preparing to launch three rockets.

Before, during and after the eclipse on Monday, NASA will fire three sounding rockets to determine how the total eclipse could affect radio communications on Earth. The findings could pave the way for NASA to develop new technologies to protect radio communications during both brief and extended periods when solar behavior disrupts particles on Earth.

Stargazers from Mexico to the US and Canada are standing by for the last total solar eclipse to pass over the contiguous US for the next 20 years. The duration of totality, or the time during which the moon completely shrouds the sun from view, will last 4 minutes and 27 seconds. The eclipse will reach Texas at approximately 1:10 p.m. ET and Maine by 2:22 p.m. ET. By 4:17 p.m. ET, it will move beyond the eastern North American border.

Firing rockets during an eclipse may sound like it comes straight from a sci-fi movie, but it’s a technique that’s been used for years to measure scientific data and theories. Indeed, eclipses provide critical, if short-lived, opportunities for scientists to gather information on a variety of topic areas to test whether their concepts are accurate.

Arguably the most important finding during an eclipse occurred in May 1919, when scientists discovered during a total eclipse that some stars appeared to be in the wrong place, according to NASA. The finding provided critical evidence to support Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity and the idea that the sun or other large celestial objects have so much gravity that they can bend light and distort spacetime.

NASA’s rocket launches on Monday won’t necessarily have that same gravitas, but science works in increments. The launches will be streamed live, so you can see what happens. Here’s how.

Why is NASA firing rockets during the eclipse?

The space agency is firing three sounding rockets, or rockets carrying scientific instruments, into the ionosphere, the region of the Earth’s atmosphere between the lower atmosphere, where we live, and space.

The ionosphere is scientifically important because it’s made up of particles that become ionized, or electrically charged, when they interact with the sun’s radiation. According to NASA, the ionosphere thins at night and thickens when the sun’s rays are hitting it. The ionosphere can be unpredictable, since it’s highly sensitive to disruption.

«Earth’s terrestrial weather and space weather can impact these particles, making it a dynamic region and difficult to know what the ionosphere will be like at a given time,» NASA says.

Another thing: the ionosphere affects communication, and especially high-frequency communication like radio waves. That could, for instance, create disturbances in communications with pilots in the air or with government agencies doing research. But radio waves traveling to and from satellites aren’t just of concern to aviators and scientists. They’re also vital elements of daily life, from satellite internet services like SpaceX’s Starlink to the GPS signals that underlie all manner of financial transactions and that help you get where you’re going.

From a site in Virginia, NASA’s three rockets will be launched into the ionosphere 45 minutes apart: before the eclipse starts; when the eclipse is ongoing; and after the eclipse has reached its peak. The rockets will reach a maximum altitude of 260 miles, allowing them to spend plenty of time in the ionosphere, which spans 55 miles to 310 miles above the Earth’s surface.

Each of the rockets is carrying four two-liter soda bottle-sized instruments that will be ejected during flight to evaluate any ionosphere disturbances, or perturbations, during the eclipse.

«Gathering the data on these perturbations will help scientists validate and improve current models that help predict potential disturbances to our communications, especially high frequency communication,» NASA says.

Has NASA fired rockets at an eclipse before?

This isn’t the first time NASA has fired rockets during an eclipse. In October, NASA fired the same three rockets from its White Sands Test Facility in North Mexico during an annular solar eclipse. The agency said that it was able to recover the rockets and refurbish them, allowing them to be used in Monday’s mission.

Thanks to that mission, scientists were able to see ionosphere disturbances after it fired the second and third rockets, during and after the eclipse, respectively. NASA didn’t see any ionosphere disturbance during the first launch.

However, this time around, the rockets are equipped with additional instruments, allowing them to capture more information than they did last year, NASA says.

When is NASA firing its rockets?

NASA plans to launch all three rockets from its Wallops Island facility in Virginia. The first rocket will launch at approximately 2:40 p.m. ET, with the second rocket launching at approximately 3:25 p.m. ET. NASA plans to launch the final rocket by 4:05 p.m. ET.

As always, timing on the launches depends on a variety of factors, including on-the-ground conditions, and may be subject to change. But since the eclipse isn’t waiting for NASA to be ready to fire rockets, expect the space agency to try to keep a tight schedule to ensure it doesn’t miss its window to capture data.

How can I watch NASA fire rockets at the eclipse?

If you’re interested in watching NASA’s rocket-firing mission, the agency will livestream it from its official Wallops Island YouTube page. It’ll also be featured during NASA’s official solar eclipse broadcast

The rocket-only livestream will begin at 2:30 p.m. ET. NASA will start airing its solar eclipse coverage at 1 p.m. ET.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for April 4, #193

Three of the four categories are especially tough today. Here are hints and the answers, for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, No. 193, for April 4.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

I only solved one of the four categories for today’s Connections: Sports Edition on my own, so if you need help, you’re not alone.

The yellow category was pretty simple, but after that I couldn’t make any connections. It might help if you know a lot about a certain NBA player’s resume. Read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Do better.

Green group hint: March Madness.

Blue group hint: Six-time all-star.

Purple group hint: Think Wimbledon.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Not meeting expectations.

Green group: Teams in the Women’s Final Four.

Blue group: Teams Kawhi Leonard has played for.

Purple group: Ends in a piece of tennis equipment.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is not meeting expectations. The four answers are bust, disappointment, dud and failure.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is teams in the Women’s Final Four. The four answers are Bruins, Gamecocks, Huskies and Longhorns.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is teams Kawhi Leonard has played for. The four answers are Aztecs, Clippers, Raptors and Spurs.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ends in a piece of tennis equipment. The four answers are bracket, eyeball, horseshoes and internet.

Quick tips for Connections: Sports Edition

#1: Don’t grab for the easiest group. For each word, think about other sports categories it might fit in – is this a word that can be used in football, or to describe scoring options?

#2: Second meanings are important. The puzzle loves to use last names and even college names that mean other things, to fool you into thinking they are words, not names.

#3: And the opposite is also true. Words like HURTS might seem like a regular word, but it’s also the last name of at least one pro athlete.

Technologies

Skip Your iPhone’s Lockscreen: Here’s the Hidden Flashlight Trick You Need to Know

A couple of taps can really make a difference on your iPhone.

Not long ago, your iPhone’s lockscreen would only allow two app shortcuts that you couldn’t change: camera controls and a flashlight toggle. However, iOS 18.2 allows you to customize these shortcuts to almost anything you might want. This small but impactful change is one of many ways iOS 18 supercharges customization for iPhone and iPad users. But what if you still want an easy-to-access way to toggle your flashlight without unlocking your phone?

Apple introduced an accessibility feature in iOS 14 that, once enabled, allows you to perform actions by just tapping on the back of your phone. The feature is called Tap Back and it remains a sleeper feature that’s sneakily hidden away in your settings menu. Enabling Tap Back essentially allows you to create a button on the back of your iPhone to perform an action without needing to take up any space.

Once you have Tap Back enabled, it doesn’t take long to see how much of a game-changer it can be with its added convenience. Below, we’ll show you how to set it up so a couple of taps on the back of your iPhone will let you launch just about anything you want.

For more, check out what’s in the latest iOS 18.4 release.

How to set up Back Tap on iPhone

Whether you want to link Back Tap with your flashlight, camera or launch a different iPhone app, the path through your iPhone settings begins the same way.

On your compatible iPhone (iPhone 8 or later), launch the Settings application and go to Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap. Now you have the option to launch your action (in this case, your flashlight) with either two or three taps. Although two taps is obviously faster, I would suggest three taps because if you fidget with your phone, it’s easy to accidentally trigger the accessibility feature.

Once you choose a tap option, select the Flashlight option — or a different action if you prefer. You’ll see over 30 options to choose from, including system options like Siri or taking a screenshot, to accessibility-specific functions like opening a magnifier or turning on real-time live captions. You can also set up Back Tap to open the Control Center, go back home, mute your audio, turn the volume up and down and run any shortcuts you’ve downloaded or created.

You’ll know you’ve successfully selected your choice when a blue checkmark appears to the right of the action. You could actually set up two shortcuts this way — one that’s triggered by two taps and one that’s triggered by three taps to the iPhone’s back cover.

Once you exit the Settings application, you can try out the newly enabled Back Tap feature by tapping the back of your iPhone — in my case, to turn on the flashlight. To turn off the flashlight, you can tap on the back of your iPhone as well, but you can also just turn it off from your lock screen if that’s easier.

For more great iPhone tips, here’s how to keep your iPhone screen from dimming all the time and canceling all those subscriptions you don’t want or need.

Technologies

All the Nintendo Games You Can Update to Switch 2 for Free

Bad news: Mario Kart World will cost $80. Good news: These classic games will get free revamped versions for Switch 2.

Nintendo’s Switch 2 launch event on Wednesday has upset some fans for one key reason: pricing. The new console will be released on June 5 at a starting price of $450, and it will have new games, like Mario Kart World, Kirby Air Riders and Donkey Kong Bananza. But those games could cost as much as $80 (and that’s before factoring in possible tariffs).

Fortunately, Nintendo has also announced that some Nintendo Switch games will get free updates to improve playability on the upcoming console.

«By connecting your Nintendo Switch 2 to the internet, you can download free updates that may improve performance or add support for features such as GameShare in select games,» the company posted.

Here are all the Nintendo Switch games that can get a free update for the Switch 2.

Nintendo also announced that other Switch games will have upgraded versions of the base game, called Switch 2 Editions. These games, which include The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, may offer improved graphics, unique ways to play the game with the Switch 2 hardware, and other features.

You can buy a digital or physical copy of these games if you’re purchasing them for the first time. But Switch 2 Edition games are not free if you already own the Switch version of one of these games, so you’ll have to buy an upgrade pack to play the updated version.

It’s unclear how much Switch 2 Editions of games and upgrade packs will cost, and it’s also unclear how upgrade packs will work with physical versions of Switch games.

The Nintendo Switch 2 will also be backward compatible with certain games. While we don’t know all the Switch games that will be playable on the Switch 2, we know some Switch games have startup (PDF) or in-game (PDF) compatibility issues with the upcoming console.

For more on the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, here’s what we know about the upcoming console and what to know about games like Mario Kart World and Duskbloods.