                        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 October 15
   A driveway is shown with a car at the top of the frame but a series of
      shadows across the rest of the frame. A close inspection of these
      shadows shows that they are frequently small images of an ongoing
     partial solar eclipse. Please see the explanation for more detailed
                                information.

                               An Eclipse Tree
                    Image Credit & Copyright: Shawn Wyre

   Explanation: Yes, but can your tree do this? If you look closely at the
   ground in the featured image, you will see many images of yesterday's
   solar eclipse -- created by a tree. Gaps between tree leaves act like
   pinhole lenses and each create a small image of the partially eclipsed
   Sun visible in the other direction. The image was taken in Burleson,
   Texas, USA. Yesterday, people across the Americas were treated to a
   partial eclipse of the Sun, when the Moon moves in front of part of the
   Sun. People in a narrow band of Earth were treated to an annular
   eclipse, also called a ring-of-fire eclipse, when the Moon becomes
   completely engulfed by the Sun and sunlight streams around all of the
   Moon's edges. In answer to the lede question, your tree not only can do
   this, but will do it every time that a visible solar eclipse passes
   overhead. Next April 8, a deeper, total solar eclipse will move across
   North America.

               Album: Selected eclipse images sent in to APOD
                       Tomorrow's picture: eclipse sky
     __________________________________________________________________

       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

