Some things you won't see every day

Posted on March 6, 2007 by Nicholas Gruen
Posted in Uncategorised

eclipse-from-the-moon.jpg saturnfromabove_cassini.jpg

Well you won't see them any day on this planet.  You've got to change your perspective on things to see the earth eclipsing the Sun or Saturn from above/below.  Click on either image for the full picture. Magnificent non?

3 Comments

  1. braddles
    March 6, 2007

    Well I don't think you will see the scene on the left any day at all. I'm sure it's a fake. It is the famous 1972 "Full Earth" shot taken by Apollo 17, darkened and superimposed on a picture of a solar eclipse.

    The one on the right is real, though. It was taken by Cassini recently.

  2. Nicholas Gruen
    March 6, 2007

    I've just looked and you're dead right braddles. Thx for letting me know - obvious when pointed out - you'd need to be well beyond the moon for the earth to be as big as the moon is, which is about the size it would have to be to just cover the sun as this picture suggests. In fact the blurb to the picture suggests it covers the sun easily, but that's not what it looks like. The link is here.

  3. Sacha Blumen
    March 7, 2007

    The "diamond ring" effect on the left is well-known in solar eclipses (it's due to the sun peaking through mountains on the moon and I'd guess the lack of an atmosphere to smear out the light) - but it'd be surprising if something similar occurred around the Earth, due to the Earth's atmosphere.