Watching the Solar Eclipse from Outer Space

Unless you live in the Pacific or were on spot enough to catch the recent total solar eclipse that took place on March 9^th on any of the live streams that were made available online, there is one more chance for you to witness a rare event. This time around, however, you may find yourself in more awe than you would have if you’d been watching from the surface of the earth.

On behalf of Deep Space Climate Observatory satellite – also dubbed DSCOVR – a spacecraft that is currently stationary at nearly 1.5 million kilometers away from the Earth and towards the sun, NASA together with the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a video depicting the solar eclipse as it was witnessed from outer space on the fateful day of March 9^th.

The video itself is made of multiple images that were combined to display the looming shadow that the moon made when forming a perfect line with the Earth and the Sun on either side. The shadow can be seen slowly moving from south-west to north-east across the Pacific Ocean before the ending of the eclipse on early March 9^th.

The DSCOVR is a satellite that is in charge of watching solar eruptions – also known as coronal mass ejections – and emissions of powerful solar wind that it notifies the Earth in less than 30 minutes after first observing an event of such nature. However, other than its very proficient sensors, the DSCOVR also happens to be placed at a very fortunate vantage point that allows it to capture full-scale images of planet Earth using its EPIC – Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera. This satellite is also responsible for the popular pictures and gifs that were travelling on the internet last year on July 16th, of the moon supposedly ‘photobombing’ the Earth.

Ever since its launch in February 2015, DSCOVR has managed to capture numerous images of our planet and its surroundings. While the coming of the total solar eclipse had been calculated and foreseen for a fair while, the decision to capture it on camera via the DSCOVR was a last minute decision.

Because of that, calibrations needed in order to take a proper series of stills depicting the moon’s shadow passing over the Earth were not a hundred percent complete at the time of capture. However, scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, took it upon themselves to edit out the unnatural color selection that the pictures had originally been taken in and turn them into this video.

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Nancy Young

When I was younger I used to spend almost all of my free time playing computer games. My mom and dad would go mental over this. “You’re never going to do anything with your life if you are going to play games all day” they used to say. What was even more unusual was the fact that I played more games than most of the guys in my friend group. Looking back, I have to admit that I probably played a bit too much, but I also learned a lot of great things. When I turned 20 I decided that it was high-time to make some money of my own, but the only jobs I could get were that of waitress or cashier. How exciting. After several excruciating months of serving tables I had a great idea: since I love gaming so much, why don’t I write about it? That’s when I started doing small writing projects on Elance. Eventually, I got an offer for a part-time job. During that time I learned all about content marketing strategies and how search engines work. I started writing about various topics such as technology, health and lifestyle and discovered that I was actually good at it. On November 24, 2014, I became part of the ArgyllFreePress team.