Millions of people stared up at the sky on Monday for a chance to watch the first total solar eclipse in the contiguous United States since 1979. And while countless photos were taken of the event, none are quite so impressive as those captured by NASA.
The astronauts aboard the International Space Station snapped an incredible shot, not of the eclipse, but the moon’s shadow cast on Earth, called an umbra. The International Space Station also photobombed an eclipse shot, its silhouette appearing several times in a multiple-exposure image. There were plenty of fantastic images made from Earth too, like a photo documenting the moment just before and just after totality, when sunlight burst from behind the moon. And a time-lapse photo captured the partial eclipse overhead taken from Ross Lake in northern Cascades National Park, Washington.
If you’re somehow tired of totality, astronomers and scientists busily photographed other parts of the universe too. NASA’s Hubble telescope spied the star-making dwarf galaxy NGC 178, which was mistakenly identified for many years. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE camera snapped a photo of cracked dunes after winter’s thaw. And ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer helped produce an incredibly detailed image of the red supergiant star Antares.
Want to behold more planets, galaxies, and supernovas? Then check out the entire collection.
