Unless you live in the Pacific or were on spot enough to catch the recent total solar eclipse that took place on March 9th 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 9th.
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 9th.
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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The Supermoon occurs when a “new moon” (“full moon”) is at its closest to Earth on its elliptical orbit around our planet. This results in the lunar disk being at its largest size as viewed from Earth. The term “Supermoon” was given in 1979 by the American astrologist Richard Nolle and he defined it as: “…a new or full moon which occurs with the Moon at its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit.
