Science

NASA recorded the International Space Station flying in front of the solar eclipse

partial solar eclipse international space station sun moon nasa joel kowsky 36548067642_7cfb2f9127_k labeled2
A composite image made from seven frames showing the International Space Station, with a crew of six aboard, transiting the sun during a partial solar eclipse as seen from near Banner, Wyoming, on Monday. NASA/Joel Kowsky/Flickr (CC BY 2.0)
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As the moon sneaked in front of the sun during Monday's total solar eclipse, a NASA photographer captured a once-in-a-lifetime sight.

Joel Kowsky, one of the space agency's photo editors, was near Banner, Wyoming, to watch the solar eclipse when he photographed the International Space Station zooming in front of a crescent-shaped sun.

Below is a video Kowsky recorded using a high-speed camera that recorded 1,500 frames a second. He also photographed the ISS with a standard camera (above composite image).

You can see the space station as a small "H" that moves across the field of view.


Such high-speed recording is necessary because the ISS orbits Earth from 250 miles up and moves at a speed of 17,500 mph.

It may look small, but the space station is enormous: It weighs some 450 tons, or more than twice the heft of an adult blue whale, and spans roughly the area of a football field.

international space station iss nasa
The International Space Station (ISS).  NASA

To capture such a fast-moving object from the right angle requires months or years of planning — and a lot of luck.

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Dave Mosher reported news and features stories about science and technology for Insider, with human and robotic spaceflight as the primary focus of his multimedia storytelling. Mosher joined Insider in April 2015 as a deputy editor to help launch Tech Insider and manage its science desk. He left the company in February 2021. Prior to being an Insider, Mosher directed Popular Science's website, was a Wired contributor, and worked for or with Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, Discover, Space.com, National Geographic News, Discovery Channel, Nature, Science, and other media outlets.