Hinode Captures the Solar Eclipse From Orbit

July 25, 2009

Solar eclipses are awesome, and last week's Asia eclipse was no exception. In fact, it was extra-special as it was the longest solar eclipse for a century.

However, there was one eclipse spectator that appears to have been overlooked. Sure, down here on the ground, people witnessed totality and the beautiful 'diamond ring' when the moon blocks the sun in just the right way for its halo to resemble... a diamond ring. But for me, the view from space was far more satisfying...

See the Discovery News slideshow "Solar Eclipse Blankets Asia."

Continuously viewing the sun in a very useful quasi-circular sun-synchronous orbit around the Earth means that Hinode is constantly in daylight, orbiting over our planet's day-night terminator (the line separating daytime from night-time). So, if anything should block the sun, Hinode will see it.

This time, the moon was the culprit, creating a total solar eclipse that traveled over India, Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan and China. Although Hinode didn't see totality, it did see a large, ominous chunk of the solar disk get swallowed by the moon in an astonishing set of images sent to Earth by the solar observatory.

For the complete set of Hinode eclipse pictures, have a look at the Flickr gallery...