March 16, 2010
Every year, the Earth returns to the same point in its orbit where it was when you were born.
Detailed View of a Solar Eclipse Corona
Birthday · March 16, 2010
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
Free PNG · 1080 × 1350 · No account needed
Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.
Date & occasion only
Change the year
APOD published March 16, 2010. Credit: Miloslav Druckm�ller (Brno University of Technology), Martin Dietzel, Peter Aniol, Vojtech Ru�in. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Only in the fleeting darkness of a total solar eclipse is the light of the solar corona easily visible. Normally overwhelmed by the bright solar disk, the expansive corona, the sun's outer atmosphere, is an alluring sight. But the subtle details and extreme ranges in the corona's brightness, although discernible to the eye, are notoriously difficult to photograph. Pictured above, however, using multiple images and digital processing, is a detailed image of the Sun's corona taken during the 2008 August total solar eclipse from Mongolia. Clearly visible are intricate layers and glowing caustics of an ever changing mixture of hot gas and magnetic fields. Bright looping prominences appear pink just above the Sun's limb. The next total solar eclipse will be in July but will only be visible in a thin swath of Earth crossing the southern Pacific Ocean and South America.
Image credit: Miloslav Druckm�ller (Brno University of Technology), Martin Dietzel, Peter Aniol, Vojtech Ru�in