The Space Station Crosses a Spotless Sun
Image Credit & Copyright:
Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau
Typically, the International Space Station is visible only at night.
Slowly drifting across the night sky as it orbits the Earth, the
International Space Station (ISS) can be seen as a
bright spot about once a month from many locations.
The ISS is then visible only just after sunset or just before sunrise because it shines by reflected sunlight -- once the ISS enters the Earth's shadow, it will drop out of sight.
The only occasion when the
ISS is visible during the day is when it
passes right in front of the Sun.
Then, it passes so quickly that only cameras
taking short exposures can visually freeze the
ISS's silhouette onto the background
Sun.
The
featured picture did exactly that -- it is actually a series of images taken a month ago from
Santa Fe,
Argentina with perfect timing.
This image series was later combined with a separate image
highlighting the texture of the spotless Sun, and an image bringing up the
Sun's prominences around the edge.
At an unusually low
Solar Minimum, the Sun has gone
without sunspots now for most of 2019.