Space Station, Solar Prominences, Sun
Image Credit & Copyright:
Mehmet Ergün
That's no sunspot.
It's the
International Space Station (ISS)
caught passing in front of the Sun.
Sunspots, individually, have a dark central
umbra, a lighter surrounding
penumbra, and
no Dragon capsules attached.
By contrast, the ISS is a complex and multi-spired mechanism,
one of the largest and most
complicated spacecraft ever created by
humanity.
Also, sunspots circle the
Sun,
whereas the ISS orbits the
Earth.
Transiting the Sun is not very unusual for the
ISS, which orbits the Earth about every 90 minutes,
but getting one's location, timing and equipment just right for a
great image is rare.
The featured picture combined three images all taken in 2021 from the
same location and at nearly the same time.
One image -- overexposed -- captured the faint
prominences seen across the top of the Sun,
a second image -- underexposed -- captured the complex texture of the
Sun's chromosphere,
while the third image -- the hardest to get -- captured the space station as it
shot across
the Sun in a fraction of a second.
Close inspection of the space station's
silhouette even reveals a docked
Dragon Crew capsule.