March 2016 Total Solar Eclipse
On the left, a series of images taken by NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) onboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) show the eclipse from its orbit at the first Lagrange point (L1)—a point about 1,000,000 miles (1,609,344 km) from Earth where the force of Earth's gravity almost exactly matches that of the Sun. As the DSCOVR spacecraft slowly orbits around L1 (always viewing the sunlit side of Earth) the area of reflected sunlight near the center of the globe remains stationary. During the eclipse, the moon’s shadow crosses the face of the Earth’s surface as Earth appears to rotate from left (west) to right (east) below.
In contrast, Himawari-8, a Japanese weather spacecraft, is in geostationary orbit at an altitude of ~35,791 km (22,239 mi). This means that Himawari-8 is positioned over a particular spot on Earth—located at 141 degrees East, 0 degrees North. During the eclipse, the moon's shadow appears mid-ocean and races off to the east (right), while the area of reflected sunlight appears to move right (east) to left (west) across the Earth’s surface. The instruments onboard Himawari-8 and DSCOVR use different spectral bands so the colors of the two images appear different.
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Credits
Please give credit for this item to:
"simplecolor" Himawari-8 images from NOAA/Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA), DSCOVR/EPIC images NASA Goddard
Visualizer
- Marit Jentoft-Nilsen (None)
Writer
- Heather Hanson (GST)
Datasets used in this visualization
Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) (Collected with the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) sensor)
Himawari-8 (Collected with the Advanced Himawari Imager (AHI) sensor)
Note: While we identify the data sets used in these visualizations, we do not store any further details nor the data sets themselves on our site.
Related pages
An EPIC View of the Moon’s Shadow During the June 10 Solar Eclipse
July 21st, 2021
Read moreMusic: “Cherry on Top” by Ben Beiny [PRS] from Universal Production MusicComplete transcript available. NASA’s EPIC, Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), sits aboard NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory Satellite (DSCOVR). EPIC provides high quality, color images of Earth, which are useful for monitoring factors like the planet’s vegetation, cloud height, and ozone. And every once in a while –– most recently, June 10, 2021 –– it has the opportunity to capture a solar eclipse.A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon is positioned between the Sun and Earth, leading the Moon’s shadow to be projected onto Earth. During a total solar eclipse, the Moon completely blocks the Sun. During an annular solar eclipse, like the one on June 10, the Moon is near its farthest point from Earth and appears smaller than the Sun in the sky. As the two align, the Sun appears as a ring of fire surrounding the dark disk of the Moon. On June 10, viewers in parts of Canada, Greenland, and Russia were treated to a full annular eclipse. People in a handful of other locations, including parts of the Caribbean, Asia, Europe, eastern United States, Alaska, and northern Africa, were able to catch a partial solar eclipse, where only part of the Sun is blocked by the Moon, leaving behind a crescent-shaped piece of Sun. EPIC didn’t have too bad a view, either.You can find more photos and videos from EPIC, including a few lunar photobombs, here. Related pages