The universe is fascinating and the folks at NASA are actively involved in unraveling its mysteries. They often catch something interesting happening up there that’s impossible for us to see down here. Last week, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory or SDO caught a rare double eclipse on video. As I said, it’s fascinating!
When both the Earth and the Moon cross in front of the sun that’s deemed to be a double eclipse. We don’t get to see that here on Earth but SDO was able to capture it on video.
It’s SDO’s job to constantly keep an eye on the sun but during its semiannual eclipse seasons, the Earth briefly blocks the SDO’s light of sight every day, that’s due to the SDO’s geosynchronous orbit.
Earlier this week on September 1st, the Earth fully eclipsed the sun from SDO’s perspective at the exact moment the Moon started to eclipse the sun. The end of the Earth eclipse happened just in time for the SDO to capture the final stages of the lunar transit.
The Earth and Moon both appear dark but their edges are distinct. NASA says that the Earth’s edges are fuzzy because our planet’s atmosphere absorbs some of the sun’s light while the Moon’s edges are sharp because it has no atmosphere which absorbs the light.
Do check out the video that SDO has released!