William Shatner Gets Dramatic Talking About ‘Magical’ Eclipse to MSNBC: ‘Celestial Bodies…in Between Celestial Bodies’

William Shatner, perhaps best known as Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, traveled to Indiana University to witness the solar eclipse, and MSNBC captured his dramatic take on the celestial event.

Reporter Maura Barrett said hundreds of thousands of people were expected in central Indiana where eclipse viewing was expected to be premium, “But the big draw here at Indiana University is Captain Kirk, himself.”

“For some reason this eclipse has caught the imagination of the nation. I mean, it’s huge when you think about it,” Shatner said, continuing:

“We’ve only in the last, I don’t know, hundred years, have a scientific explanation of what an eclipse is. But prior to that, can you imagine what people were thinking? “The heavens are breaking, it’s ominous sounds, we’re all going to die.” And, now, we realize it’s not as dire as that, but it’s more magical. I mean, celestial bodies are placing themselves in between other celestial bodies. And at this precise moment this enormous universe is located right here. Right here in Bloomington, Indiana.

Barrette adde, “And so this is expected to be an emotional, unifying experience, as the chair of the astronomy department told me here.”

Shatner famously shot to the edge of space in only the second passenger flight of Jeff Bezos‘ Blue Origin ship in 2021. Afterwards, he said he was “overwhelmed” and that it was “the most profound experience I could have.”

“I am so filled with emotion about what just happened,” he continued at the time. “It’s extraordinary, extraordinary. I hope I never recover from this. I hope I can maintain what I feel now. I don’t want to lose it.”

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.