Lunar Transit from Solar Dynamics Observatory (2010)

A movie of the Aug 21, 2017 lunar transit as viewed by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO.) The Sun appears in visible light, and 171 ångstrom extreme ultraviolet light. The movie shows the Sun moving a bit because SDO has a hard time keeping the Sun centered in the image during a transit, because the Moon blocks so much light. The fine guidance systems on the SDO instruments need to see the whole Sun in order keep the images centered from exposure to exposure. Once the transit was over, the fine guidance systems started back up, once again providing steady images of the Sun.Credit: NASA/SDOWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel. Animated GIF of the Moon transiting across the Sun, taken by SDO in 171 ångstrom extreme ultraviolet light on August 21, 2017. Credit: NASA/SDO Animated GIF of the Moon transiting across the Sun, taken by SDO in visible light on August 21, 2017. Credit: NASA/SDO Image of the Moon transiting across the Sun, using a blend of 171 ångstrom extreme ultraviolet light and visible light imagery from SDO from August 21, 2017. Credit: NASA/SDO Image of the Moon transiting across the Sun, taken by SDO in 304 ångstrom extreme ultraviolet light on August 21, 2017.Credit: NASA/SDO Image of the Moon transiting across the Sun, taken by SDO in 171 ångstrom extreme ultraviolet light on August 21, 2017.Credit: NASA/SDO NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory was also treated to a view of the Moon blocking the Sun. Because of its location 3,000 miles above the Earth, SDO sees several lunar transits each year. An eclipse on the ground, however, does not guarantee that SDO will see anything out of the ordinary. In this case, SDO was lucky and got treated to the Moon briefly passing in front of its non-stop view of the Sun at the same time that the Moon’s shadow passed over the eastern United States. SDO only saw 14% of the Sun blocked by the Moon, whereas most US residents saw 60% or more.Launched on Feb. 11, 2010, the Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, is the most advanced spacecraft ever designed to study the Sun. It has examined the Sun's atmosphere, magnetic field and also provided a better understanding of the role the Sun plays in Earth's atmospheric chemistry and climate. SDO captures images of the Sun in 10 different wavelengths every 12 seconds at resolution 8 times better than HD. Each wavelength helps highlight a different temperature of solar material. Different temperatures can, in turn, show specific structures on the sun such as solar flares, which are gigantic explosions of light and x-rays, or coronal loops, which are stream of solar material traveling up and down looping magnetic field lines.The videos and images displayed here are constructed from several wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light and a portion of the visible spectrum. The red colored Sun is the 304 ångstrom ultraviolet, the golden colored Sun is 171 ångstrom, and the orange Sun is filtered visible light. 304 and 171 show the atmosphere of the Sun, which does not appear in the visible part of the spectrum. 171 highlights material at about 1 million degrees Fahrenheit (600,000 degrees Celsius.) Related pages

This image is a view of the sun captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on Oct. 7, 2010, while partially obscured by the moon. A close look at the crisp horizon of the moon against the sun shows the outline of lunar mountains. A model of the moon from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been inserted into the picture, showing how perfectly the moon's true topology fits into the shadow observed by SDO. Credit: NASA/SDO/LRO/GSFC SDO and LRO composite with artificially rim-lit moon.Credit: NASA/SDO/LRO/GSFC SDO and LRO composite with artificially rim-lit moon.Cropped version.Credit: NASA/SDO/LRO/GSFC This is an up close shot of two NASA images: An image rendered from a model of the moon from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter overlaid onto an image of the sun from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, during a lunar transit as seen by SDO on Oct. 7, 2010. The various features of the moon’s horizon are labeled. Credit: NASA/SDO/LRO/GSFC This is an up close shot of two NASA images: An image rendered from a model of the moon from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter overlaid onto an image of the sun from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, during a lunar transit as seen by SDO on Oct. 7, 2010. Unlabeled version.Credit: NASA/SDO/LRO/GSFC This is an up close shot of two NASA images: An image rendered from a model of the moon from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter overlaid onto an image of the sun from the Solar Dynamics Observatory, during a lunar transit as seen by SDO on Oct. 7, 2010. Shifting the moon image slightly shows how well the lunar features match the outline in the SDO image.Credit: NASA/SDO/LRO/GSFC This image is a view of the sun captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on Oct. 7, 2010, while partially obscured by the moon. A close look at the crisp horizon of the moon against the sun shows the outline of lunar mountains. A model of the moon from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter has been inserted into the picture, showing how perfectly the moon's true topology fits into the shadow observed by SDO. This version shows the complete moon.Credit: NASA/SDO/LRO/GSFC This image is a view of the sun captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on Oct. 7, 2010, while partially obscured by the moon. A close look at the crisp horizon of the moon against the sun shows the outline of lunar mountains.Credit: NASA/SDO Two or three times a year, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory observes the moon traveling across the sun, blocking its view. While this obscures solar observations for a short while, it offers the chance for an interesting view of the shadow of the moon. The moon’s crisp horizon can be seen up against the sun, since the moon does not have an atmosphere. (At other times of the year, when Earth blocks SDO’s view, the Earth’s horizon looks fuzzy due to its atmosphere.) If one looks closely at such a crisp border, the features of the moon’s topography are visible, as is the case in this image from Oct. 7, 2010. This recently inspired two NASA visualizers to overlay a 3-dimensional model of the moon based on data from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter into the shadow of the SDO image. Such a task is fairly tricky, as the visualizers — Scott Wiessinger who typically works with the SDO imagery and Ernie Wright who works with the LRO imagery — had to precisely match up data from the correct time and viewpoint for the two separate instruments. The end result is an awe-inspiring image of the sun and the moon. To start the process, the visualizers took the viewing position and time from the SDO image. This information was dropped into an LRO model that can produce the exact view of the moon from anywhere, at any time, by incorporating 6 billion individual measurements of the moon’s surface height from LRO’s Lunar Orbiter Laser Altimeter instrument. The model had to take many factors into consideration, including not only SDO’s distance and viewing angle, but also the moon’s rotation and constant motion. Wright used animation software to wrap the elevation and appearance map around a sphere to simulate the moon. The two images were put together and the overlay was exact. The mountains and valleys on the horizon of the LRO picture fit right into the shadows seen by SDO. In its own way, this served as a kind of calibration of data. It means that the SDO data on its position and time is highly accurate and that the LRO models, too, are able to accurately provide images of what’s happening at any given moment in time. And of course, the whole exercise provides for a beautiful picture. For More InformationSee [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/sun-moon.html](http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/news/sun-moon.html) Related pages