On August 12, a total solar eclipse enveloped the skies of Greenland, Iceland, and Spain. As the Moon obscured the Sun, it momentarily exposed the Sun’s faint outer atmosphere—the corona—to those within the path of totality who enjoyed clear conditions. Researchers and photographers associated with NASA positioned themselves along the eclipse route to investigate the corona, capture this phenomenon visually, and assess how such events impact our planet.
A NASA photographer stationed in Spain recorded the total phase while also documenting the preceding and following partial phases until the Sun sank below the horizon.
Further north in Maine, where only a partial eclipse occurred, a separate NASA astronaut captured an image of the International Space Station, whose seven-member crew glided past the partially shaded Sun.
Concurrently, approximately 250 miles above ground level, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station photographed the partial eclipse from orbit, offering a vantage point unavailable from the surface.
From an altitude of 50,000 feet, NASA pilots operating the WB-57F research jet traversed the eclipse’s shadow to maximize observation time. The aircraft transported a suite of high-resolution cameras designed to capture detailed images of the corona and solar plasma prominences in multiple spectral bands.
Across Iceland and Spain, participants in NASA’s Nationwide Eclipse Ballooning Project launched scientific balloons equipped with instruments capable of imaging the eclipse shadow and analyzing atmospheric responses. While cloud cover obstructed the ground-based views in Iceland, the airborne sensors continued to measure the brief decrease in light and thermal energy permeating the lower atmosphere.
Prior to the eclipse, scientists at Predictive Science Inc.—backed by NASA grants and supercomputing resources—leveraged observations from NASA spacecraft and ground telescopes to predict the corona’s morphology. Their forecast was compared side-by-side with a composite coronagraphic image generated by the NASA-supported DEB Initiative during the total eclipse near León, Spain.