Credit & Copyright: Doyle and Shannon Slifer
Explanation:
What's that in front of the Sun?
The closest object is an
airplane, visible just below the Sun's center and caught purely by chance.
Next out are numerous clouds in
Earth's atmosphere, creating a series of darkened horizontal streaks.
Farther out is
Earth's Moon,
seen as the large dark circular bite on the upper right.
Just above the airplane and just below the Sun's surface are sunspots.
The main sunspot group captured here,
AR 2192, was in 2014
one of the largest ever recorded and had been
crackling and bursting with
flares since it came around the edge of the Sun a week before.
This show of solar silhouettes was unfortunately short-lived.
Within a few seconds the plane flew away.
Within a few minutes the clouds drifted off.
Within a few hours the
partial solar eclipse of the Sun by the Moon was over.
Fortunately, when it comes to the Sun, even
unexpected
alignments are
surprisingly frequent.
Perhaps one will be imaged this Saturday when a
new partial solar eclipse will be visible from much of North and South America.
APOD editor to speak:
in Houghton, Michigan on Thursday, October 12 at 6 pm
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: partial solar eclipse
Publications with words: partial solar eclipse
See also: