A Solar Eclipse Unlike Any You’ve Ever Seen
During a total solar eclipse, our view of the Sun’s disk is blocked entirely by the Moon. The Sun’s corona, however, remains very much in view – a roiling wreath of spellbinding atmospheric activity.
The image above was captured by Czech photographer Miloslav Druckmüller on July 22, 2009, when the Moon blocked our star from view for a whopping 6 minutes and 39 seconds. It was, and will remain, the longest total solar eclipse of the 21st century. From the Enewetak Radiological Observatory on the Marshall Islands – an archipelago in the northern Pacific Ocean – Druckmüller managed to capture a series of images of our Moon in transit, with the express purpose of photographing not just the Sun’s blockage, but the extent and shape of its corona.