Moon Shadow Moves Over Africa

When the Moon's shadow reached out and touched the Earth last week, the result was a solar eclipse . Such an eclipse is total only for observers located along a narrow path corresponding to the ground track of the shadow's dark central portion or umbra . For this eclipse, racing along at nearly 2000 kilometers per hour, the Moon's umbra obligingly crossed over land along regions of Africa and Australia . Totality lasted for about two minutes or less at a given location. Many nearby regions fell within the lighter but much wider outer shadow region, the penumbra , and witnessed a partial solar eclipse . The above movie follows the Moon's shadow as it crossed Africa during a similar eclipse in June 2001. Each frame is separated in time by about 20 minutes. The movie was created from frames taken by the orbiting European satellite MeteoSat-6 .