REUTERS/SAMANTHA CRISTOFORETTI / ESA
The eclipse seen from the other side: while people all over the world looked at the moon moving across the sun – the astronaut on the ISS space station got to see the shadow this caused on the earth.
A partial solar eclipse was visible on Friday (March 20), mainly in Europe and Russia, and it skimmed parts of north Africa, the Middle East and Asia, as much a sight to see for the astronaut orbiting the earth as those watching below.
“I think this is it: the umbra”, Samantha Cristoforetti tweeted, showing a photo of a dark shadow over Europe as the eclipse passed maximum obscurity.
In an eclipse, when skies are clear, stars and planets are suddenly visible in daytime and, if the eclipse is total, a ring of fire – the corona – appears around the sun.
In one famous experiment, a 1919 eclipse gave evidence for Einstein’s theory of relativity by showing that the sun’s mass bent light from distant stars.
Reuters/SAMANTHA CRISTOFORETTI / ESA