A solar eclipse… from SPACE! NASA’s probe captures the moon passing in front of the sun in stunning images capturing ‘sunfire-lit lunar mountains’
- NASA’s spacecraft has captured the moon passing in front of the sun from space in a stunning series of images.
- The solar eclipse was not visible from Earth and lasted only 35 minutes, but was captured on camera from space.
- Close-up images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory show lunar mountain ranges illuminated by swirling solar flares
- The Leibnitz and Doerfel ranges near the moon’s south pole have been identified by NASA experts.
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A POT The satellite captured stunning images of a partial solar eclipse from its unique vantage point in space, the only place it was visible.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) photographed the moon passing in front of the sun yesterday around 05:20 BST (01:20 ET).
The transit lasted about 35 minutes, and at its peak, the moon covered 67 percent of the burning surface.
The spacecraft then returned a series of images of the event showing “solar-lit lunar mountains,” according to experts at SpaceWeather.com.
Bumps and irregularities can be seen on the surface of the moon it passed through that have been identified as part of the Leibnitz and Doerfel mountain ranges.
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured images of a 35-minute-long partial solar eclipse from its unique vantage point in space, the only place it was visible.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed the moon passing in front of the sun yesterday from 05:20 BST (01:20 ET)
The spacecraft returned a series of images of the event showing “solar-lit lunar mountains,” according to experts at SpaceWeather.com.
Patricio Leon, from Santiago, Chile, compared close-up images of the moon moving in front of the sun with a topographic map from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
He was able to identify the Leibnitz and Doerfel mountain ranges near the south pole of the moon during the eclipse.
Experts in SpaceTime.com He said: ‘At the peak of the eclipse, the Moon covered 67 per cent of the Sun, and the lunar mountains were illuminated by solar fire.
“High-resolution images like these can help the SDO science team better understand the telescope.
‘They reveal how light diffracts around the SDO optics and filter support grids.
“Once they’re calibrated, it’s possible to correct the SDO data for instrumental effects and make images of the sun sharper than before.”
Launched in 2010, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory monitors the sun with a fleet of spacecraft, taking pictures of it every 0.75 seconds.
It also studies the sun’s magnetic field, atmosphere, sunspots, and other aspects that influence activity during the 11-year solar cycle.
The sun has been experiencing heightened activity for a few months as it appears to be entering a particularly active period of its 11-year activity cycle, which began in 2019 and is expected to peak in 2025.
The sun’s magnetic poles reverse at the peak of the solar activity cycle, and a solar wind composed of charged particles carries the magnetic field away from the sun’s surface and throughout the solar system.
This accompanies an increase in solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from the sun’s surface.
A CME is a significant release of plasma and its accompanying magnetic field from the sun’s corona, the outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere, into the solar wind.
CMEs only impact Earth when pointed in the direction of our planet, and they tend to be much slower than solar flares since they move a larger amount of matter.
Patricio Leon, from Santiago, Chile, compared close-up images of the moon moving in front of the sun with a topographic map from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. He was able to identify the Leibnitz and Doerfel mountain ranges near the south pole of the moon during the eclipse.
The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), shown here in the illustration, studies how solar activity is created and how space weather results from that activity.
AThe energy from a flare can disturb the area of the atmosphere through which radio waves travel, which can cause temporary blackouts in navigation and communications signals.
On the other hand, CMEs have the power to push the Earth’s magnetic fields, creating currents that push particles towards the Earth’s poles.
When these react with oxygen and nitrogen, they help create the aurora, also known as the northern and southern lights.
Additionally, magnetic changes can affect a variety of human-made technologies, causing GPS coordinates to drift by a few meters and overloading power grids when power companies aren’t prepared.
There has been no extreme CME or solar flare in the modern world, the last being the Carrington Event in 1859, which created a geomagnetic storm with an aurora that appeared all over the world, as well as fires at telegraph stations.
WHAT IS THE NASA SOLAR DYNAMICS OBSERVATORY SATELLITE?
The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a NASA mission that has been observing the sun since 2010.
Its ultra-HD cameras convert different wavelengths of light into an image that humans can see, and then the light is colored in a rainbow of colors.
The satellite was launched on February 11, 2010 from Cape Canaveral.
The SDO contains a suite of instruments that provide observations that will lead to a more complete understanding of the solar dynamics that drive variability in the Earth’s environment.
One of the many amazing images that SDO has provided
Among the tasks that this suite of instruments can accomplish is measuring ultraviolet light, variations in the sun’s magnetic field, imaging the chromosphere and inner corona, and capturing solar variations that may exist at different time periods of a cycle. solar.
It does so, using three separate pieces of equipment: the helioseismic and magnetic imager; Montage of Atmospheric Images; and Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment.
Scientific teams receive this data, which they then process, analyze, archive, and release to the public.
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