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An awe-inspiring new picture has captured the second a tiny and unusually vibrant Mars rose from behind the moon’s crater-covered floor throughout a current eclipse.
The Purple Planet was quickly obscured from Earth’s view by the passing moon throughout an occasion referred to as a lunar occultation, which happens roughly twice a yr and lasts for round an hour. Nevertheless, the Dec. 7 eclipse proved particularly dramatic as a result of Mars was at opposition, that means Earth was instantly between it and the solar, which makes the planet seem unusually vivid within the night time sky, in keeping with Dwell Science’s sister website House.com (opens in new tab).
The brand new picture was captured by skilled astrophotographer and Arizona resident Andrew McCarthy (opens in new tab), who shared the beautiful shot on Twitter (opens in new tab).
“That is the second Mars peeked out from behind our moon,” McCarthy wrote. “Seeing one other planet rising on the horizon of our moon was such a surreal expertise.”
Associated: Mars could also be slowly ripping its largest moon aside
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Mars’ uncommon brightness meant that the current eclipse was clearly seen from Earth’s floor, and many individuals captured images and movies of the Purple Planet disappearing (opens in new tab) or reappearing from behind the moon. Nevertheless, “capturing an in depth picture of this occasion was an actual problem,” McCarthy advised Dwell Science.
To amass his ultra-detailed picture, McCarthy utilized an astrophotography method referred to as “fortunate imaging,” which entails taking fast bursts of tens, lots of or 1000’s of images and stacking the perfect ones on high of one another to kind a single, detailed picture. Because of the velocity the moon travels, McCarthy had a window of simply 10 seconds to take his photos to keep away from the lunar floor changing into blurred within the last image. Throughout this temporary window, he took round 2,000 particular person photos.
“General it is one of the crucial troublesome photographs I’ve ever captured,” McCarthy stated. However it’s also “certainly one of my favourite moments since starting this interest.”
On Nov. 16, the unmanned Orion capsule from NASA’s Artemis I mission captured an analogous picture of Earth disappearing behind the lunar floor because the spacecraft flew previous the moon and into orbit across the satellite tv for pc.
In September, McCarthy additionally captured a surprising timelapse picture of a 1 million-mile-long (1.6 million kilometers) plume of plasma erupting from the floor of the solar throughout a coronal mass ejection.
