Home » Technology » Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti takes beautiful photos of the lunar eclipse

Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti takes beautiful photos of the lunar eclipse


New images reveal the latest lunar eclipse as seen from the International Space Station.

Astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti . van de European Space Agency (ESA) Twitter Monday to share three beautiful new photos of the space.

The images show the latest lunar eclipse — also known as a “blood moon” — which occurred on May 15 from three different points.

One of the images shows Earth’s glowing blue atmosphere in the background.

Also visible in the images are the three wings of the International Space Station (ISS) – which are made up of solar panels.

Cristoforetti tweeted in both English and Italian: “Partially eclipsed moon is playing hide and seek with our solar panels.”

Since the live broadcast, the photos have racked up thousands of likes and hundreds of comments and tweets.

“I watched the station last night while watching the solar eclipse! They waved to you all and wondered how amazing the view is from there. Thanks for sharing these photos!” A Twitter user responded.

“Great photos, thanks for sharing,” echoed another user.

All images show the wings of the International Space Station (ISS) – which are made of solar panels.
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“These are some of the coolest pictures of the moon I’ve seen. They seem to come straight from the movie,” said a third person.

What is a lunar eclipse?

The earth constantly revolves around the sun and the moon constantly revolves around the earth.

Sometimes all three can be aligned, placing the Earth directly between the sun and moon in a straight line.

This means that the moon is in the darkest part of the Earth’s shadow – the “shadow”.

Due to the convenient size and distance of the three objects, the sun’s rays cannot reach the moon directly.

However, some of the sunlight is refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere, making the moon appear reddish – hence the name ‘blood moon’.

Lunar eclipses usually last only a few hours and can be seen from anywhere on the night side of the Earth.

Because they are usually quite dim, it is also possible to view lunar eclipses without eye protection, which is not the case with solar eclipses.

How many types of lunar eclipses?

There are three different types of lunar eclipses.

A “total lunar eclipse” occurs when the moon turns deep red and receives only light passing through Earth’s atmosphere.

A “penumbral lunar eclipse” occurs when the sun, moon and Earth don’t form a perfectly straight line, so the moon only travels through the outermost part of the Earth’s shadow.

Finally, he describes a “partial lunar eclipse” when part of the moon travels through Earth’s full shadow — a darkening portion of the moon.

This story originally appeared the sun It is reproduced here with permission.

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