Gallery: Solar eclipse shadows as seen from space
This weekend's solar eclipse certainly put on a show. There are tons of amazing photos and videos — including this incredible time-lapse video — that show the "Ring of Fire" eclipse.
One view we don't often see is what an eclipse looks like from space. Though these images are of older eclipses, the view from various satellites and the International Space Station look down at the Earth and show the giant shadow projected across various parts of the globe.
It's a cool look at just what a kind of footprint an eclipse makes as viewed from above and here down on Earth.
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The Moon's shadow engulfed Taiwan and a large part of southeastern China and the Pacific Ocean on July 22, 2009, during an unusually long total eclipse of the Sun. Image: NASA Earth Observatory
This 2009 eclipse shadow was produced from data from EUMETSAT's Meteosat-7 satellite which is located over the Indian Ocean, received over EUMETCast by my MSG Data Manager, with the false-colour combination produced by my GeoSatSignal-7 software combining both visible-channel and thermal-channel data from the satellite. GeoSatSignal.
The International Space Station was in position to view the umbral (ground) shadow cast by the Moon as it moved between the Sun and the Earth during the solar eclipse on March 29, 2006. This astronaut image captures the shadow across southern Turkey, northern Cyprus, and the Mediterranean Sea. Image: NASA Earth Observatory.
An especially sharp image of a total eclipse shadow over Antarctica. Image: NASA/GSFC
The shadow of the moon falls on Earth as seen from the ISS, 230 miles above the planet, during a total solar eclipse on Wednesday, March 29, 2006. This digital photo was taken by the Expedition 12 crew, Commander Bill McArthur and Flight Engineer Valery Tokarev. Visible near the shadow are portions of Cyprus in the Mediterranean Sea and the coast of Turkey. Image: NASA International Space Station
The shadow of the Moon can be seen darkening part of Earth; the shadow moves across the Earth at nearly 2000 kilometers per hour. Only observers near the center of the dark circle see a total solar eclipse - others see a partial eclipse where only part of the Sun appears blocked by the Moon. This spectacular picture of the 1999 August 11 solar eclipse was one of the last ever taken from the Mir space station before being decommissioned. Image: Astronomy Picture of the Day
