The annular eclipse that occurred over the Americas on October 14th was also observed from space by Earth-observation satellites. During this eclipse, the moon passed in front of the sun, creating a glowing ring of fire in the sky. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellites, namely GOES-East and GOES-West, captured this event.
Instead of seeing the fiery golden ring that people witnessed on the ground, the NOAA satellites recorded a darker and somewhat ominous shadow as the moon moved across the sun’s path. The images captured by GOES-16 were shared by the National Weather Service (NWS) Atlanta, showing the moon’s shadow moving diagonally across the Earth from the upper left to the lower right during the eclipse.
The annular eclipse began in Oregon at approximately 09:13 PDT (12:13 p.m. EDT, 1613 GMT) and then travelled through states like Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, and Texas before crossing the Gulf of Mexico, Mexico, Central America (Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama), Colombia, and Brazil. Finally, the ring of fire disappeared from view over the Atlantic Ocean at sunset.
Meanwhile, GOES-18, which replaced GOES-17 in January 2023, provided a different perspective from the GOES-West position. The Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere (CIRA) at Colorado State University shared GOES-West’s view of the eclipse’s shadow, which extended from the Western U.S. to South America and around the Earth’s limb.
Eclipses occur when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun while they are in alignment. Depending on the moon’s proximity to Earth, different types of eclipses occur. In the case of an annular eclipse, like the one witnessed over the Americas, the moon is farther from Earth due to its elliptical orbit, creating the famous “ring of fire” effect as it doesn’t completely cover the sun’s disk.
This annular eclipse served as a precursor to the total solar eclipse that will be visible in the U.S. on April 8, 2024. This upcoming eclipse, the first total solar eclipse in the U.S. since 2017 and the last until 2044, will completely obscure the sun as it travels from Mexico through Texas to the Northeast of the U.S. and up to Canada, in contrast to the path of the 2023 annular eclipse.
