A Cool Eclipse

This one is entertainment value, with, I guess, a dash of science. It’s via the Sydney Morning Herald, and it is a very brief video of a solar eclipse filmed on February 25:

“It’s like being in the wrong solar system,” gasped one NASA scientist after she gazed at the images.
The unearthly view was snapped on February 25 by one of two satellites in the space agency’s STEREO (Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory) project to unravel the mysteries of the Sun.
Launched in October, the twin craft are in an orbit around the Sun that almost exactly matches our world’s path. However one satellite, STEREO-B, is trailing about 1.6 million kilometres behind the Earth, while the other, STRERO-A, is travelling ahead.
Last month, during a test of STEREO-B’s cameras, the scientists commanded the craft to image the Moon as it passed in front of the Sun.
*** By pure coincidence the relatively tiny Moon, when seen from Earth, looks exactly the same size as the much bigger and far more distant Sun.

Enjoy it, albeit briefly.


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