﻿ Astronomy Picture of the Day [1]Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2023 September 17 [2]A dark circle is seen in the image center. On both the left and right of the circle are a series of bright half-rings. Some parts of these bright half rings are dark, and the dark areas look similar to mountains. Please see the explanation for more detailed information. Moon Mountains Magnified during Ring of Fire Eclipse Credit & Copyright: [3]Wang Letian ([4]Eyes at Night) Explanation: What are those dark streaks in this composite image of a solar eclipse? They are reversed shadows of mountains at the edge of the Moon. The center image, captured from [5]Xiamen, [6]China, has the Moon's center directly in front of the Sun's center. [7]The Moon, though, was [8]too far from [9]the Earth to completely block the entire Sun. Light that streamed around the edges of the Moon is called a [10]ring of fire. Images at each end of the sequence show [11]sunlight that streamed through lunar valleys. As the Moon moved further in front of the Sun, left to right, only the higher peaks on the Moon's perimeter could block sunlight. Therefore, the dark streaks are projected, [12]distorted, reversed, and magnified [13]shadows of mountains at the Moon's edge. Bright areas are called [14]Baily's Beads. Only people in a narrow swath across Earth's [15]Eastern Hemisphere were able to view this full annular solar eclipse in 2020. Next month, though, a narrow swath crossing [16]both North and South America will be exposed to the [17]next annular solar eclipse. And next April, a [18]total solar eclipse will be visible across North America. Open Science: [19]Browse 3,000+ codes in the Astrophysics Source Code Library Tomorrow's picture: sprite tree __________________________________________________________________ [20]< | [21]Archive | [22]Submissions | [23]Index | [24]Search | [25]Calendar | [26]RSS | [27]Education | [28]About APOD | [29]Discuss | [30]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [31]Robert Nemiroff ([32]MTU) & [33]Jerry Bonnell ([34]UMCP) NASA Official: Phillip Newman [35]Specific rights apply. [36]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: [37]ASD at [38]NASA / [39]GSFC, [40]NASA Science Activation & [41]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2309/BeadMountains_Letian_3000.jpg 3. http://www.luckwlt.com/About Me.html 4. http://www.luckwlt.com/ 5. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5nVmMxIwY 6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China 7. https://moon.nasa.gov/ 8. https://eclipse.aas.org/sites/eclipse.aas.org/files/Total-Annular-TQ.jpg 9. https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/earth/overview/ 10. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200615.html 11. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170301.html 12. https://i.pinimg.com/236x/69/ff/c4/69ffc42ba1c739e25ed76fcaa6555a0e.jpg 13. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap180507.html 14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baily's_beads 15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Hemisphere 16. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas 17. https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/list.html 18. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170912.html 19. https://ascl.net/code/all 20. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230916.html 21. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 22. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 23. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 24. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 25. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 26. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss 27. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 28. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 29. https://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=230917 30. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap230918.html 31. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 32. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 33. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 34. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 35. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 36. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 37. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 38. https://www.nasa.gov/ 39. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 40. https://science.nasa.gov/learners 41. http://www.mtu.edu/