NASA Camera Captures Total Solar Eclipse from 1 Million Miles Away

During the total solar eclipse on March 8th and 9th, NASA had a camera documenting it from a very special perspective — one that’s 1 million miles away.

The photo above was captured by the NASA DSCOVR satellite’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) 4-megapixel CCD camera. It shows the large, round shadow of the moon as it passes over the face of the Earth, blocking the sun’s light for a large swatch of our planet between Asia and Australia.

Here’s what DSCOVR’s sequence of photos looks like when turned into an animation:

DSCOVR snapped its first photo in July 2015, so this view of a total solar eclipse is the first of its kind. Since the DSCOVR has a fixed view of Earth as it rotates on its axis, this is the first time the shadow of an entire eclipse has been documented in a series of photos.

In August 2015, DSCOVR also captured an amazing series of images showing the moon passing across the face of the Earth.

(via Earth Observatory via Engadget)