September 17, 2023
The oldest light in the universe still hums faintly through space, a relic of the beginning itself.
Moon Mountains Magnified during Ring of Fire Eclipse
Birthday · September 17, 2023
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APOD published September 17, 2023. Credit: Wang Letian (Eyes at Night). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
Behind the image
Moon Mountains Magnified during Ring of Fire Eclipse
Original APOD · September 17, 2023 ↗What are those dark streaks in this composite image of a solar eclipse? They are reversed shadows of mountains at the edge of the Moon. The center image, captured from Xiamen, China, has the Moon's center directly in front of the Sun's center. The Moon, though, was too far from the Earth to completely block the entire Sun. Light that streamed around the edges of the Moon is called a ring of fire. Images at each end of the sequence show sunlight that streamed through lunar valleys. As the Moon moved further in front of the Sun, left to right, only the higher peaks on the Moon's perimeter could block sunlight. Therefore, the dark streaks are projected, distorted, reversed, and magnified shadows of mountains at the Moon's edge. Bright areas are called Baily's Beads. Only people in a narrow swath across Earth's Eastern Hemisphere were able to view this full annular solar eclipse in 2020. Next month, though, a narrow swath crossing both North and South America will be exposed to the next annular solar eclipse. And next April, a total solar eclipse will be visible across North America. Open Science: Browse 3,000+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library
Image credit: Wang Letian (Eyes at Night)