NASA spacecraft captures rare double eclipse of the sun
An eclipse just got eclipsed. On 13 September, first the Earth and then the moon swept between NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite and the sun, blocking the satellite’s view.
On the ground, a partial solar eclipse, in which the moon crosses the sun, was visible from southwest Africa to Antarctica. But for about an hour the view was better – or worse, if you wanted to see the sun – from orbit.
Right before the moon passed in front of the sun, the Earth blocked SDO’s view of the sun, too. When the Earth cleared out of the way, the moon still blocked it, leaving a brief period when the silhouettes of both were visible. Both bodies were headed toward the image’s upper left.
In the image, the Earth, with its semi-transparent atmosphere, lopped off the top of the sun with a blurred edge. The moon, which has no atmosphere, took out a clean cookie-cutter piece on the left.
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