NASA has some really amazing tools in hand for observing the sun, and one of them spotted the moon passing in front of the sun in a gorgeous partial eclipse seen from space.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory monitors the sun twenty-four hours a day. At least he watched the sun in this way last week, when a ground power outage brought the observatory to a standstill for a few days. However, it was restarted on June 28, just in time to observe the movement of the moon as it passed between the observatory and the sun on June 29 to form a spectacular partial eclipse.
At the height of the eclipse, the moon covered 67% of the sun’s surface, and its “mountains shone with the fire of the sun,” as Spaceweather.com poetically described them.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) monitored the eclipse from its unique location in space, as the eclipse was not visible from Earth. However, we will see an eclipse on October 25 that is expected to be seen from most of Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and western parts of Asia. (Don’t worry dear reader, we’ll let you know when the time comes.)
The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is currently studying the way solar activity affects and influences the climate of space, for example, how coronal mass ejections can create solar storms on Earth, which cause beautiful auroras and sometimes blackouts. Note that coronal mass emission is a type of solar flare, which is a huge ejection of plasma from the outer layer of the sun, called the corona (or corona).
The sun still has three years to reach the peak of this solar cycle, which the sun is expected to reach in July 2025. But this solar cycle is now unusually active and early, during which a few violent flares, sunspots and mass emissions occur. Corona, and even the recent emergence of a rare AC zone, which means we’ve got some great pictures of the space climate to enjoy and hopefully the power won’t go out because of it.
iflscience