Great View! January 4 Solar Eclipse As Seen From Space

By Nancy Atkinson - January 6, 2011 at 5:10 AM UTC | Solar Astronomy

Here's a unique view of the January 4 partial solar eclipse: ESA's sun-watching microsatellite Proba-2 captured the conjunction of the spheres as the Sun, Moon and Earth all lined up in front of it. Shortly after the Moon partially blocked Proba-2's view of the Sun, the satellite flew into Earth's shadow. At that point – when the video seen here goes dark – the Sun, Moon, Earth and Proba-2 were all on the same line in space.

"This is a notable event," said Bogdan Nicula of the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB), who calculated where and when this double-eclipse would happen. "It is a nice exercise to model the orbit and relative positions of all three celestial bodies."

The images making up this video were observed by Proba-2 with its SWAP imager which operates at extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths to monitor the swirling layer of the solar corona just above the Sun's surface.

Proba-2 is less than a cubic meter in volume and SWAP is only the size of a large shoe box, so orbit determination is a challenge.

"We had to work very hard to get this high-resolution pointing needed for these images," explained David Berghmans, SWAP's principal investigator.

Nice work!

Source:

ESA

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com