Astronomy Picture of the Day - A Golden Corona Eclipse

NASA ^ | 17 Aug, 2026 | Image Credit & Copyright: Rui Santos (Living Impressions)

[MtnClimber]

Explanation: This total solar eclipse appeared not only poetically beautiful but scientifically interesting. Usually the solar corona appears white, and to some observers the corona of last week's total solar eclipse did appear this pearly color. But this time, totality observers in Spain saw a corona that appeared unusually golden. For one reason, from Spain, the totality occurred when the setting Sun was near the horizon. That low, sunlight travels through a large amount of air which scatters out blue light. An unusual amount of smoke in the air from nearby forest fires acted as a second filter, further scattering the remaining blue tones and deepening the already gold-dominated light. The HDR-processed, multiple-exposure featured image was captured from Benavente, Spain last week. One thing that did not appear golden was a hydrogen-glowing prominence that hovered over the Sun's left edge -- its original bright pink color survived.

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TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa

[MtnClimber]

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

[MtnClimber]

[MtnClimber]

Pinging the APOD list

🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔

[Governor Dinwiddie]

It's sort of the consequence of a cosmic golden shower.

[No name given]

Wow.

[AFB-XYZ]

What’s that red thing on the left-hand edge, halfway between top and bottom?

[Verginius Rufus]

Did Corona Beer pay NASA to have this happen?

[Organic Panic]

Like looking in to Uranus,