People throughout components of the U.S. have been handled to the spectacular sight of an annular photo voltaic eclipse final Saturday, the place the Earth, moon, and solar align in a manner that creates a lunar shadow and a so-called “ring of fireside.”
Providing one other perspective, NASA on Tuesday shared a exceptional picture (high) of the identical celestial occasion as seen from 1,000,000 miles away.
It was captured by the EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Digital camera) imager on board DSCOVR (Deep House Local weather Observatory), a satellite tv for pc collectively operated by NASA, NOAA (Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), and the U.S. Air Drive that was launched by SpaceX in 2015.
The observatory is situated at Lagrange Level 1, a gravitationally steady space between Earth and the solar round 1,000,000 miles from our planet.
Whereas DSCOVR’s major position is to observe photo voltaic winds for house climate forecasts, it additionally beams again Earth photographs that embody the one we see right here.
The unbelievable image clearly reveals a darkened space over the U.S., brought on by the moon’s shadow as our nearest neighbor slid between Earth and the solar final Saturday.
When an annular photo voltaic eclipse is seen from Earth, the moon fails to utterly block the view of the solar, permitting folks with security glasses or particular viewers to see the sting of our nearest star seem across the exterior of the moon, a scene generally described because the ring of fireside. It’s a fleeting spectacle, and the height was solely viewable alongside a reasonably slim band that swept throughout 9 U.S. states, from Oregon within the northwest all the best way all the way down to Texas. It was additionally viewable from components of Central and South America.
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