December 23, 2024

Total Solar Eclipse Below the Bottom of the World Captured From Airplane

By NASA
December 6, 2021

The next overall solar eclipse shadow will cross parts of Australia and Indonesia in April of 2023, while the one after that will cross North America in April of 2024.

Overall Solar Eclipse Below the Bottom of the World. Credit & & Copyright: Petr Horálek (ESO Photo Ambassador, Inst. of Physics in Opava).
On Saturday, December 4, 2021, there was a total solar eclipse noticeable only at the end of the Earth. To catch the unusual phenomenon, planes took flight below the seascape of the Southern Ocean.
The featured image (above) shows one reasonably amazing capture where the brilliant area is the outer corona of the Sun and the eclipsing Moon is viewed as the dark area in the center. A wing and engine of the aircraft are noticeable across the left and bottom of the image, while another plane observing the eclipse is visible on the far.
The dark area of the sky surrounding the eclipsed Sun is called a shadow cone. Since you are looking down a long passage of air watched by the Moon, it is dark. A mindful examination of the eclipsed Sun will reveal the world Mercury simply to the right.