MTG-I1 captures eclipse path of totality over Europe

Video: 00:00:04 Yesterday between 20:26 and 20:34 CEST, parts of the Iberian peninsula experienced a total solar eclipse. This animation, composed of images from the Meteosat Third Generation Imager satellite (MTG-I1), caught the Moon’s dark shadow as it passed over Earth’s surface – converging with the advancing twilight shadow as dusk fell over Europe. From its vantage point in geostationary orbit, MTG-I1 keeps its imaging instruments focused on Europe and northern Africa from a distance of 36 000 km above Earth’s surface. This enabled it to track the Moon’s shadow, called the path of totality, as it swept first over Greenland and Iceland, then over a small part of northeastern Portugal and finally, Spain. While the total eclipse itself lasted just a few minutes on mainland Europe, a partial eclipse was visible over a much wider area. Spectators were able to see the Moon partially covering the Sun’s disc as far apart as northern Canada, the Nordic countries and the western coast of Africa, as far south as Sierra Leone and Liberia. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, blocking the face of the Sun for a short period. During totality, a halo o