Have you ever seen the new moon on satellite imagery? Probably not!
Now look at the pictures and video of the lunar transit showed below. And you have your New Moon on photo!
As reported by the SDO blog this morning:
SDO had a lunar transit this morning from 1113-1207 UTC (7:13-8:08 a.m. ET). The spacecraft did not go back into Science mode at the end of the transit. SDO FOT members are looking into the issue.
In other words, the New moon – on August 2, 2016 is New Moon – crossed between NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and the sun – a so-called lunar transit phenomenon.
The New moon never obscured the entire star. During this transit, the moon covered less than half of the sun.
The crisp border of the moon pops out against the bright light of the sun, as it passes over active regions.
In this video, they take this phenomenon for a giant eclipse… But it’s nice to see it live:
The lunar horizon appears so sharp because the moon has no atmosphere that would distort light.
