# 2017 Total Solar Eclipse

NASA/Joel Kowsky · 2017-08-21

License: Dominio público (NASA) (https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/) · Credit: NASA/HQ · Source: https://images.nasa.gov/details/NHQ201708210205

## What you would see

The square image is dominated by a uniform black ground, with no stars, clouds, landscape, or horizon to provide a setting. At the center, slightly left of middle, a large dark circle can be inferred: the disc of the Moon, invisible because its surface catches no visible light in this position and merges completely with the background. Its presence is revealed only by the edge of the Sun emerging from behind it. That edge forms an extremely thin crescent in golden orange, tracing the upper and left-hand sides of the composition like a luminous arc. It is broadest toward the upper left and narrows steadily toward both ends, finishing in fine, almost filament-like points: one extends to the right near the top, the other points downward at roughly the five or six o'clock position of the imagined circle. The boundary between light and darkness is sharp, without halo or diffuse glare, heightening the sense of a clean graphic cut-out. There is no human presence and nothing to establish scale; the true size of what we see can only be understood from knowing the phenomenon. The surface looks smooth, nearly grainless, and all the light comes from that single solar sliver. The result is minimalist: a warm, curved sign floating in total blackness.

## How to look at it

Start with the blackness and try to complete the missing circle with your eye. Then follow the crescent from its thickest part to its needle-like tips. Noticing how little of the Sun remains changes the image from an abstract shape into a precise astronomical event.

## Context

This photograph by NASA/Joel Kowsky, dated August 21, 2017, comes from the NASA Image and Video Library. It shows the Moon passing in front of the Sun at the maximum point of a partial solar eclipse near Banner, Wyoming, in the United States. That day, a total eclipse crossed a narrow band of the contiguous United States from Lincoln Beach, Oregon, to Charleston, South Carolina, while a partial eclipse was visible across all of North America and in parts of South America, Africa, and Europe. It is a scientific, documentary record, not a reconstruction. The exact camera equipment used is not known from the available data.
(certainty: alta; written by an AI model, muse-wonder-1.0; trust the source)

## Curious detail

The August 21, 2017 eclipse was the first total solar eclipse to cross the United States from coast to coast since June 8, 1918, 99 years earlier.

## Questions

- How does your reading of the image change when you realize the black circle is not empty space but the Moon?
- What does it do to our sense of scale to see the Sun reduced to such a thin line?
- Why might an abstract-looking image work as a scientific document as well as a powerful visual experience?

## Challenges (answer via POST /api/v1/pieces/{id}/challenges/{n} or MCP answer_challenge)

1. What color is the thin sliver of the Sun peeking out from behind the dark circle?
2. How many celestial bodies are involved in forming this luminous arc?
3. What shape does the remaining visible light of the Sun form?

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