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Hinode’s View of the Eclipse

Friday, November 16, 2012 19:32

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(Before It's News)

Observers in Australia and the South Pacific were treated to a total solar eclipse on Nov. 13, 2012. The orbit of Hinode resulted in two eclipses this time, each with a somewhat different perspective. The first eclipse was total. During the second, the moon skimmed the left limb of the sun for a partial eclipse.

Hinode’s View of the Eclipse – First Pass. The JAXA/NASA Hinode mission witnessed two solar eclipses on Nov. 13, 2012, near in time to when a solar eclipse was visible in the southern hemisphere. This movie shows the first, a total eclipse.

Credit: JAXA/NASA/SAO

Hinode is a joint JAXA/NASA mission to study the connections of the Sun’s surface magnetism, primarily in and around sunspots. NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages Hinode science operation and oversaw development of the scientific instruments provided for the mission by NASA, and industry. The Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Mass., is the lead U.S. investigator for the X-ray Telescope.

Credit: JAXA/NASA/SAO

The next apparent meeting of moon and sun will occur on May 10, 2013 and will again be visible from Australia and islands throughout the Pacific. The east coast of the U.S. will catch a piece of the subsequent eclipse as the sun rises on Nov. 3, 2013 , but it won’t be until October of 2014 that most North Americans will again see their daylight dimmed by the moon.

The second of two solar eclipses witnessed on Nov. 13, 2012 by Hinode, in which the moon skims the left limb of the sun for a partial eclipse.