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Credit & Copyright: Carlos Di Nallo
Explanation:
What happened to half of Saturn?
Nothing other than Earth's Moon getting in the way.
As pictured above on the far right,
Saturn is partly eclipsed by a dark edge of a Moon itself only
partly illuminated by
the Sun.
This year the orbits of the
Moon and Saturn have led to an
unusually high number of alignments of the ringed giant behind Earth's largest
satellite.
Technically termed an
occultation, the
above image captured one such
photogenic juxtaposition from
Buenos Aires,
Argentina that occurred early
last week.
Visible to the
unaided eye
but best viewed with binoculars, there are still four
more eclipses of Saturn by our Moon left in 2014.
The next one will be on August 4 and
visible from Australia,
while the one after will occur on
August 31 and be visible from western Africa at night but
simultaneously from much of eastern North America during the day.
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Moon - Saturn - eclipse
Publications with words: Moon - Saturn - eclipse
See also: