Photo credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / SDO / Joy Ng
On October 16, 2020, the moon became photo bombs NASAView of the Sun from the Solar Dynamics Observatory. This apparent space crossing, known as the lunar transit, took about 50 minutes between 3:05 p.m. and 3:53 p.m. ET. At its peak, the moon covered about 44% of the sun. During this time, the moon also covered two of the spacecraft’s fine control sensors, causing its view of the sun to shake slightly. The spaceship, or SDO for short, regained its stable vision shortly after the end of the transit.
Currently, the lower half of the sun shows two active regions – areas of intense magnetic fields on the sun that are often associated with solar activity and eruptions. Now that Solar Cycle 25 is up and running, scientists expect more active regions to emerge in the coming months.
SDO captured these images in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light. This type of light is invisible to human eyes and is colored here in gold.
