NASA Sun Observatory Sees Partial Solar Eclipse in Space

[Judi Lynn]

By Tariq Malik, Space.com Managing Editor | May 26, 2017 05:45pm ET

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The moon crosses the sun in during a partial solar eclipse in space in this view from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in space. The lunar transit lasted nearly an hour, with the moon covering about 89 percent of the sun's disk at the eclipse's peak.

Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO/Joy Ng, producer


NASA's powerful Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) may seem to have a boring job: staring at the sun as a space weather sentinel. But every now and then, the observatory gets a lunar surprise to break up the routine.

That's what happened Thursday (May 25), when the moon passed between SDO and the sun in a brief — but awesome — partial solar eclipse in space. The lunar crossing, or transit, lasted nearly an hour, with the moon covering about 89 percent of the sun at the eclipse's peak.

On Friday (May 26), NASA released an animation of the partial solar eclipse as seen in SDO images. The eclipse began Thursday at 2:24 p.m. EDT (1824 GMT) and ended at 3:17 p.m. EDT (1917 GMT). [The 8 Most Famous Solar Eclipses in History]

"While the moon's edge appears smooth in these images, it's actually quite uneven," NASA officials wrote in an image description. "The surface of the moon is rugged, sprinkled with craters, valleys and mountains. Peer closely at the image, and you may notice the subtle, bumpy outline of these topographical features."

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