Yesterday’s solar eclipse, seen from space

Yesterday saw a partial eclipse of the Sun, visible in parts of eastern Russia and North America. In space, however, a more impressive eclipse (with virtually the entire solar disc obscured) was visible to the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency‘s Hinode spacecraft.

Hinode (‘Sunrise’) was built in part by UCL’s Mullard Space Science Lab, and is the latest chapter in a long history of close relations between UCL and Japan.

This video shows the view captured from the spacecraft’s X-ray telescope, which captures the extremely hot gases in the solar atmosphere. (Note that while X-rays may let us see through a few centimetres of flesh, they don’t let us see through several thousand kilometres of Moon.)

Video credit: Shimojo/JAXA/ISAS