Twofer! Total Solar Eclipse, Hurricane Barbara Spotted From Space (Photo)

News
By Mike Wall
published

The GOES-West weather satellite captured the gorgeous shot.

The moon's shadow passes south of Hurricane Barbara during the total solar eclipse of July 2, 2019, in this photo captured by the NOAA/NASA GOES West satellite.
The moon's shadow passes south of Hurricane Barbara during the total solar eclipse of July 2, 2019, in this photo captured by the NOAA/NASA GOES West satellite. (Image credit: CIRA/NOAA.)

Here's something you don't see every day.

A gorgeous satellite photo shows the moon's dark, ragged shadow barreling across the Pacific Ocean, just south of Hurricane Barbara's churning clouds, during today's total solar eclipse.

That shadow reached the Chilean coast around 4:40 p.m. EDT (2040 GMT) today (July 2) and kept right on going, heading east across South America's narrow southern wedge toward the Atlantic.

Today's event was the first total solar eclipse since the August 2017 "Great American Solar Eclipse," which crossed the U.S. from coast to coast. The next such skywatching spectacle won't occur until December 2020, when southern South America again will play host. (Total solar eclipses occur about once every 18 months.)

The United States won't be treated to another total solar eclipse until April 2024. But that will be a good one, with the diagonal path of totality extending northeast from Mexico all the way up through Canada's maritime provinces.

The spectacular photo was captured by GOES-West, a weather satellite that's a joint project of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA.

Editor's Note: If you captured an amazing photo or video of the July 2 total solar eclipse and would like to share it with Space.com's readers, please send your images with comments to spacephotos@space.com.

Mike Wall's book about the search for alien life, "Out There" (Grand Central Publishing, 2018; illustrated by Karl Tate), is out now. Follow him on Twitter @michaeldwall. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom or Facebook.

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Mike Wall
Mike Wall
Senior Space Writer

Michael Wall is a Senior Space Writer with Space.com and joined the team in 2010. He primarily covers exoplanets, spaceflight and military space, but has been known to dabble in the space art beat. His book about the search for alien life, "Out There," was published on Nov. 13, 2018. Before becoming a science writer, Michael worked as a herpetologist and wildlife biologist. He has a Ph.D. in evolutionary biology from the University of Sydney, Australia, a bachelor's degree from the University of Arizona, and a graduate certificate in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. To find out what his latest project is, you can follow Michael on Twitter.