                        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 September 10
   A person is seen standing at the top of a ridge. The person appears as
   a silhouette onto the central dark region of an annular solar eclipse.
    The annular solar eclipse is a bright ring with a large dark hole in
    the middle. Please see the explanation for more detailed information.

                  An Annular Solar Eclipse over New Mexico
                     Credit & Copyright: Colleen Pinski

   Explanation: What is this person doing? In 2012, an annular eclipse of
   the Sun was visible over a narrow path that crossed the northern
   Pacific Ocean and several western US states. In an annular solar
   eclipse, the Moon is too far from the Earth to block out the entire
   Sun, leaving the Sun peeking out over the Moon's disk in a ring of
   fire. To capture this unusual solar event, an industrious photographer
   drove from Arizona to New Mexico to find just the right vista. After
   setting up and just as the eclipsed Sun was setting over a ridge about
   0.5 kilometers away, a person unknowingly walked right into the shot.
   Although grateful for the unexpected human element, the photographer
   never learned the identity of the silhouetted interloper. It appears
   likely that the person is holding a circular device that would enable
   them to get their own view of the eclipse. The shot was taken at sunset
   on 2012 May 20 at 7:36 pm local time from a park near Albuquerque. Next
   month, on October 14, a different narrow swath across North and South
   America will be exposed to a different annular solar eclipse, if the
   sky is clear. Simultaneously, cloud-free observers almost anywhere on
   either continent will be able to see a partial solar eclipse.

                      Tomorrow's picture: active comet
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

