                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2023 April 21

                    Solar Eclipse from Western Australia
                  Image Credit & Copyright: Gwenaël Blanck

   Explanation: Along a narrow path that mostly avoided landfall, the
   shadow of the New Moon raced across planet Earth's southern hemisphere
   on April 20 to create a rare annular-total or hybrid solar eclipse. A
   mere 62 seconds of totality could be seen though, when the dark central
   lunar shadow just grazed the North West Cape, a peninsula in western
   Australia. From top to bottom these panels capture the beginning,
   middle, and end of that fleeting total eclipse phase. At start and
   finish, solar prominences and beads of sunlight stream past the lunar
   limb. At mid-eclipse the central frame reveals the sight only easily
   visible during totality and most treasured by eclipse chasers, the
   magnificent corona of the active Sun. Of course eclipses tend to come
   in pairs. On May 5, the next Full Moon will just miss the dark inner
   part of Earth's shadow in a penumbral lunar eclipse.

                      Tomorrow's picture: light-weekend
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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