NASA launched three sounding rockets at the Moon's shadow during Monday's total solar eclipse to study how the phenomenon affects the Earth's atmosphere. The first atmospheric perturbations around a eclipse path, a pp, sounding rocket took off from NASA's Wallops flight facility in Virginia at 2.40 pm, about 45 minutes before the eclipse, according to the agency. The second was launched at around 3.25 pm during the peak of the eclipse, with the third delayed for a few minutes before taking off at 4.28 pm.