The entire planet observed the first solar eclipse of 2020 last Sunday. On June 21, the Earth, Moon, and the Sun aligned in a straight line for 6 hours. This gave rise to the annular solar eclipse which showed the beautiful ‘Ring of Fire‘. People shared breathtaking images and videos of the event from their balconies and terraces. Some countries were able to see the entire event while others missed the glorious event due to poor weather conditions.
The annular solar eclipse was the year’s first solar event. Previously, the Strawberry moon lunar eclipse of June 6 was equally beautiful. The solar eclipse was so beautiful to look at from Earth. One can only imagine how beautiful the event looked from space. A NASA astronaut living and working in space and a number of weather satellites caught the event as the moon’s shadow passed over the earth’s surface.
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Super cool view of the Annular Solar Eclipse which passed by our starboard side as we flew over China this morning. A pretty neat way to wake up on Father's Day morning! Hoping all of the dads in the world have a wonderful day! #Eclipse #FathersDay #HappyFathersDay2020 pic.twitter.com/vJx5yOFAcb
— Chris Cassidy (@Astro_SEAL) June 21, 2020
Annular Solar Eclipse 2020: How it looked from space
NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy shared the super cool view of the Annular Eclipse which passed by their starboard side as they flew over China in the morning. A ‘ring of fire’ or annular eclipse occurs when the moon passes between the sun and earth. But, unlike a total eclipse, the moon isn’t close enough to earth to block the sun’s visible disk.
Here's some #MondayMotivation for you this morning—another view of yesterday's annular #SolarEclipse courtesy of #Meteosat8, operated by our partners @EUMETSAT. This type of #eclipse occurs when the moon passes in front of the sun, but doesn't completely cover it. pic.twitter.com/y0ArDEjc1m
— NOAA Satellites (@NOAASatellites) June 22, 2020
Other satellites captured the eclipse from a much higher altitude. Russia’s Elektro-L No.2 weather satellite spotted an interplay of shadows. In the end, one can understand the beauty of space events as seen from outside Earth.
#SATELLITE SPOTLIGHT: The first day of #AstronomicalSummer started with an #AnnularEclipse! In this #Himawari8🛰️ loop, you can see the shadow of the #Moon pass over eastern #Asia. This kind of #eclipse appears as a #RingofFire in the sky, which was seen from #Africa to #Taiwan. pic.twitter.com/cIhyk4cqzb
— NOAA Satellites – Public Affairs (@NOAASatellitePA) June 21, 2020
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Suryapratim Ray is an engineer, author, robotics hobbyist, and an active Quoran. Being a technical blogger, he covers the good, bad, and ugly of science on a regular basis at Sciencenews18. In addition to his passion for writing, he’s equally keen on learning classical music.