Lunar shadow

From a distance of 1.5 million kilometers away the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) on the DSCOVR satellite acquired this image of the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024.

This total solar eclipse plunged parts of North America into darkness with the moon shadow for a brief period. The Moon's perfect alignment with the Sun blocked its light, creating an awe-inspiring night-like scene for millions of observers along the eclipse path, which stretched 185 kilometers wide.

DSCOVR is a joint NASA, NOAA, and U.S. Air Force satellite built to observe our planet from Lagrange Point 1, a gravitationally stable position between the Sun and Earth. Lagrangian points are where all the gravitational forces acting between two objects (in this case the Earth and the sun) cancel each other out and therefore can be used by a satellite or spacecraft to ‘hover’.