April 21, 2023 - Hybrid Solar Eclipse DarkensTimor-Leste

Solar Eclipse
Tweet
Share

On April 19-20, 2023, an unusual eclipse swept over the Earth on a
narrow path, creating fully shadowed skies in Australia, Timor-Leste,
and Indonesia. In these locations, full totality first appeared as an
annular eclipse, then as a total eclipse, then returned to an annular
appearance. Nearby locations outside the thin path of totality (Asia,
East Indies, Australia, the Philippines, and New Zealand) experienced a
partial solar eclipse.

This unusual eclipse is known as a “hybrid eclipse”, and they only
occur a few times a century. As explained by EarthSky, this type of
eclipse is so special because the full eclipse—the moment when the moon
is positioned centrally in front of the sun—looks different depending
on your location. This variation is caused primarily by the Earth’s
curvature.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board
NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of full totality of
the hybrid eclipse on April 20. The island of Timor-Leste is completely
shrouded in black, which is the shadow, or the umbra, created by full
totality. The umbra also covers other islands in Indonesia and much of
the island of New Guinea. A bronze tone surrounds the umbra. This is
the penumbra, and people looking up in these regions would experience a
partial eclipse.

The image is a mosaic, acquired in two passes of the satellite. A black
section, which cuts through the center of the image, separates the two
swaths. Only the swath on the west shows any signs of the short-lived
but dramatic hybrid eclipse.

Image Facts
Satellite: Aqua
Date Acquired: 4/20/2023
Resolutions: 1km (2 MB),
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2023-04-21

--- up 1 year, 7 weeks, 4 days, 20 minutes
* Origin: -=> Castle Rock BBS <=- Now Husky HPT Powered! (1:317/3)