Ahead of the photo voltaic eclipse passing by means of the U.S. on April 8, many individuals could also be questioning whether it is secure to take a flight in the course of the occasion. TIME headed straight to the consultants for a solution, which was resoundingly optimistic.

“Yes, absolutely. There’s no reason not to [fly],” Paul Bryans, a venture scientist on the National Center for Atmospheric Research, tells TIME. A photo voltaic eclipse occurs when the moon blocks the sunshine from the solar. In phrases of being on board an plane, this doesn’t make the solar any extra of a menace than it’s on common days. “There’s nothing dangerous about a solar eclipse,” says John Gianforte, director of the observatory on the University of New Hampshire, throughout a video name. 

Nevertheless, eclipses are sometimes accompanied by security warnings from involved scientists and authorities warning the general public in regards to the significance of carrying eye safety. The phenomenon of eclipse blindness has been documented all through fashionable historical past. After an eclipse in 1976 in Turkey, 58 sufferers sought medical therapy for eclipse-related eye injury. While most made a full restoration, some reportedly had everlasting imaginative and prescient loss. Similarly, in 1999 after a photo voltaic eclipse handed by means of components of Europe, 45 sufferers attended the attention casualty of a hospital in Leicester, England, after viewing the occasion.

Read More: Helpful Tips for Planning Your Solar Eclipse Trip

All this has led many individuals to consider that eclipses are inherently harmful phenomena, however this isn’t true. The solely purpose we see extra eye accidents on photo voltaic eclipse days is as a result of individuals are intrigued and are purposefully trying on the solar. “The fact that there is an eclipse doesn’t make it any more dangerous to look at the sun, but it makes people want to look at the sun,” Gianforte factors out. “If you look at the sun on any given day, without eye protection, you’re going to damage your eyes.”

As such, you possibly can relaxation assured that flying throughout an eclipse is secure. In reality, Delta airways is providing a flight particularly for individuals who need to view the eclipse in-air.

The airplane can have further giant home windows to improve the viewing expertise. It is about to depart from Austin, Texas, at 12:15 p.m. CT and land in Detroit at 4:20 p.m. ET to give passengers the very best probability attainable of viewing totality.

Read More: How to Use Your Smartphone to Take Photos of the Solar Eclipse

What is it like to fly throughout an eclipse?

The greatest benefit that comes from flying throughout a photo voltaic eclipse is that you could be give you the chance to keep within the path of totality for a longer time frame, because the airplane can attempt to comply with the solar’s path. This may be particularly helpful to scientists making an attempt to conduct experiments that may solely be finished above floor, says Bryans. 

“Instead of getting, like, four minutes of totality on the ground, you can get something like seven or eight minutes from the plane. So that helps a little bit and some of the people that I spoke to said that it was really good for science reasons,” he tells TIME.

Being within the air may also assure that you’ll, in some unspecified time in the future, be above the clouds and would possibly give you the chance to keep away from having unhealthy climate interrupt your viewing expertise.

Read extra: What occurs if it’s cloudy throughout an eclipse?

However, viewing an eclipse from a airplane is probably not the optimum expertise for a extra informal observer. Planes can have to alternate between turning proper or left so as to get the very best angles for viewing the solar. Additionally, a huge a part of viewing an eclipse is observing how the environment on the bottom could change. For instance, animals together with cats and canine could react otherwise when an eclipse takes place. Those viewing an eclipse from a airplane could miss out on this expertise. “It’s not the same personal experience that you would get on the ground,” Bryans says.