The dark zone at the bottom of this earth image is not an exposure disturbance, but the shadow of a total solar eclipse. He hiked across southern South America once on December 14, 2020.
In a total solar eclipse, the moon slides exactly between the sun and earth and obscures them. Usually only the bright ring of the solar corona can then be seen and it becomes a little darker. We owe this phenomenon to a cosmic coincidence that this phenomenon can take place at all: the moon is around 400 times smaller than the sun, but at the same time it is around 400 times closer to us. As a result, both appear equal to us in the sky.
A total solar eclipse occurs when the moon passes directly in front of the sun – theoretically this is the case two to three times a year. But because the lunar orbit is slightly inclined and the distance between the moon and the earth varies, the umbra of the moon does not always extend all the way to the surface of the earth. On earth we can therefore only experience a total solar eclipse every one to two years. However, this is only visible in a very small section of the earth’s surface – and this is often above the sea or in unfamiliar areas.
This picture shows the only total solar eclipse of 2020. On December 14th, the path of totality moved from the equatorial Pacific over the southern tip of South America to the South Atlantic. We owe this view from above to the camera of the GEOS-16 satellite of the US atmospheric and marine agency NOAA. She could watch the shadow racing across the surface of the earth as if from a box seat.