NASA shows images of annular solar eclipse taken from space

Last Saturday (14), while a crowd of astronomy enthusiasts were enjoying the phenomenon of the Moon passing “on the other side” between the Sun and the Earth, the NASA Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) captured this image, a different look at the event: The Moon’s shadow hovering over our blue planet.

This privileged observation perspective was possible because DSCOVR is approximately 1.6 million kilometers away from Earth. The image shows the moon shadow stretching mainly across the US territory and moving south.

Launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on February 11, 2015, DSCOVR is a joint space mission of NASA, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the US Air Force (USAF). Its purpose is to monitor the solar wind, as well as the Earth, from a fixed position in space.

Why was the last annular solar eclipse different from the others?

Less spectacular than most solar eclipses and highly sought-after because of the unusual darkness they provide throughout the day, annular solar eclipses do not completely cover the solar disk, even though the Moon is between the Earth and the Sun. The result of this particular type of eclipse is that the Sun shines around our natural satellite: the “ring of fire”.

For this to happen, some coincidences must come together. First of all, just like in a total solar eclipse, the Moon needs to be in perfect alignment with the Sun. However, in an annular eclipse like the one that occurred on Saturday, The Moon is at its farthest position from the Earth and this is called “apogee”.

Since the Moon is further away from us during this apogee, it appears smaller in the sky than the Sun, so it is not “big” enough (from our perspective) to completely cover the Sun’s disk.

How did DSCOVR see the annular solar eclipse from space?

Midway between the Earth and the Sun, at a point called Lagrange Point 1 or L1, DSCOVR The orbital point is fixed by the balance between the gravitational forces of the two celestial bodies.

So when he pointed the Earth Multicolor Imaging Camera (EPIC) at our planet, he obtained a global image of the Moon’s shadow from the state of Oregon in the Pacific Northwest to Texas in the south.

Anyone standing below the darkest part of the shadow (center line) on the planet’s surface was able to observe the “ring of fire” around the Moon. As occurs in nine states in the North and Northeast of Brazil. Observers outside the line saw only a partial eclipse, whose duration and darkness level were proportional to the observers’ location.

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