The first and only total solar eclipse of 2020 occurred on December 14, with the path of totality stretching from the equatorial Pacific to the South Atlantic and passing through southern Argentina and Chile. However, the view from above may have been better than the view most people got from the ground.
The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite 16 (GOES-16) captured these images of the shadow of the Moon crossing the face of Earth. GOES-16 is operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); NASA helps develop and launch the GOES series of satellites.
The time-lapse video below includes 72 images acquired every 10 minutes between 0600 and 1800 Universal Time (3 a.m. to 3 p.m. in southern Chile) on December 14. GEOS-16 flies at about 36,000 kilometers (22,000 miles) altitude over the equator and views the Western Hemisphere from 75 degrees West latitude.
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Image via NASA Earth Observatory