As those on Earth watched out for a solar eclipse on Friday (March 20), a European Space Agency mini satellite was capturing the phenomenon from space.
The ESA’s Sun-watching Proba-2 mini satellite captured the footage which shows the shadow of the moon sweeping down across the brightly burning sun.
The mini satellite uses ultraviolet wavelengths to monitor turbulence on the star’s surface.
Friday’s mostly partial eclipse was visible mainly from Europe, Russia, and parts of north Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
On the icy Norwegian islands of Svalbard, people cheered and clapped as the moon blocked the sun for about 2.5 minutes under clear skies. Tourists there had been warned about polar bears after an attack on Thursday.
Twitter was dominated by the eclipse, with seven of the top 10 trending terms related to the sun and moon in Germany. And the German word for “doomsday” was the ninth most popular topic.
The eclipse curbed solar power production in Europe, posing a challenge to electricity grids.
Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, boasts the world’s biggest solar powered installations, which last year supplied 6 percent of its national power needs
In 1999 tens of millions of people saw the last major eclipse in Europe.
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.
Locations: IN SPACE
Source: Reuters/ESA/ROB
