14 DAY TRIAL // The Kaguya lunar orbiter, sent by the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) to collect data from the Moon, sent back amazing new images of a terrestrial eclipse, meaning that the huge sphere of the Earth was observed from a position that placed it directly in front of the Sun. As it came from behind the natural satellite, Kaguya saw the moment in its entire splendor, as our planet closely resembled a giant diamond ring, with the Sun drawing its outer layer.
The space probe recorded the sight on February 10th, with the help of its high-resolution camera. The movie only lasts less than a minute, but it depicts the Earth in a way it has only been viewed a very few times before. JAXA announced that the footage it obtained was the first such material in history, when a spacecraft orbiting the Moon managed to get a glimpse of the Earth. The machine was launched in space in September 2007, but already proves invaluable.
In the short clip provided by the Japanese agency, the lower part of the ring remains hidden from view, as a limb of the Moon gets in the way of a clear picture. After a few seconds, the sunlight becomes visible from behind our planet, and Kaguya's camera is blinded by the massive amount of light. Still, it represents a glorious moment, and shows sunlight in a way that we've never seen before, unfiltered by our planet's atmosphere.
In fact, the Sun's disc should have been completely covered by our planet's size, but the “diamond ring” only became visible on account of the fact that our atmosphere deflected the light coming from the star, and carried it to its edges. In any way, the probe will continue to monitor such occurrences until this summer, when it's scheduled to lower its orbit for a little while, taking various measurements of the Moon, and then will be dropped on the near side of the satellite.
