Solar eclipse from space

You’ve seen photos of lunar and solar eclipses, or maybe you’ve even been present for one yourself, but have you ever seen an eclipse of the Earth? Astronaut Bill McArthur and flight engineer Valery Tokarey snapped this photo from aboard the International Space Station on March 29, 2006 during a total eclipse of the sun. That day the shadow of the moon’s umbra crept from Brazil to central Asia, where the eclipse’s path of totality finally ended with a fully-blackened sun sinking below the horizon of western Mongolia.

In this image, the southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea are subsumed by a lunar shadow that extended more than 2,200 miles into North Africa’s Sahara desert. Framing the dark sphere in a halo of progressively lighter shades is the penumbral shadow. Within the shadow observers witnessed a partial eclipse of the sun, whereas those in the darkest center circle experienced a total eclipse.

Image credit: NASA