High-Resolution Image

Every 99 minutes, the Earth-orbiting Terra satellite passes very close to the North and South Poles as it travels from north to south in daylight (late morning local time) and returns from south to north in darkness (before midnight local time). On August 1st, at about 9:40am GMT, it began a south-southwesterly daylight orbit from a location at 82 degrees north latitude above the Arctic Ocean (north of Siberia). During this orbit, the MODIS instrument aboard Terra viewed regions where the solar eclipse was total and other partially darkened areas. This image shows one affected orbit displayed in the foreground with prior and later orbits 99 minutes apart displayed in the background. The Earth's rotation carries the surface toward the east, so Terra appears to be stepping westward from orbit to orbit. Meanwhile the eclipse progressed toward the south-southeast allowing Terra to cross it's track just once.

Please visit two other NASA web sites that discuss the eclipse in detail. They are the
NASA Eclipse Web Site
and the
NASA Earth Observatory Eclipse Article
which discusses the same Terra observations in more detail.

(submitted by William Ridgway, SSAI)