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Birthday · March 21, 2015

Northern Equinox Eclipse

March 21, 2015

You were born into motion: oceans turning, continents drifting, clouds forming, planets circling, galaxies wheeling through the dark.

Northern Equinox Eclipse

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APOD published March 21, 2015. Credit: Stan Honda. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

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Northern Equinox Eclipse

Original APOD · March 21, 2015

Snowy and cold is weather you might expect at the start of spring for Longyearbyen on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway. But that turned out to be good weather for watching the Moon's umbral shadow race across northern planet Earth. The region was plunged into darkness for 3 minutes during the March 20 total solar eclipse while insulated eclipse chasers witnessed the dark Sun in the cold clear sky. In this well-timed snapshot captured near the end of totality, the Moon's shadow sweeps away from the horizon and the solar corona fades as the lunar disk just begins to uncover the Sun. Streaming past the Moon's edge, direct rays of sunlight create the fleeting appearance of a glistening diamond ring. Gallery: Solar Eclipse

Image credit: Stan Honda

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