Featured Image Credit: Credit: NASA/Getty/SOPA Images/Contributor
Countless people are looking forward to next week's total solar eclipse, which will carve a path over North America, through the US and parts of Canada, but one person has already seen an eclipse from a truly unique perspective.
While looking at a solar eclipse from ground level can be pretty jaw-dropping if you're in the so-called "path of totality" (meaning the areas where 100% of the Sun's light is obscured, rather than a lower percentage), imagine what it might look like from space.
Well, former astronaut Terry Virts doesn't have to imagine it - he saw just that phenomenon in 2015 when he observed a total solar eclipse from the International Space Station (ISS) some 250 miles up.
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Best of all, Virts took some photos of the event to share the astounding sight, although nothing quite matches the experience of seeing it in the flesh (or in the astronaut's suit, in this case).
As reported by Mashable, Virts said: "It was this big, dark thing that wasn't natural", which is an interesting way to look at what is obviously not a man-made spectacle.
Virts, who retired from NASA in 2016, explained that it simply felt like an impossible thing to be happening and that the thought that kept going through his mind was what this looked like on Earth.
Well, on 8 April millions of people have the rare chance to find out, and it's one you'll want to grab. After all, the next total solar eclipse in the US isn't meant to happen until 2044.
Virts underlined how impressive it is to view a total solar eclipse compared to a more common partial one, too: "On a scale of one to ten, a partial eclipse is a seven, and a total eclipse is a million."
That's a pretty huge margin and, reassuringly, he's not just talking from the experience he had in the International Space Station, either. After returning to solid ground, he was able to view a total solar eclipse from ground level in 2017.
This presumably makes him one of only a very few people to have seen one both from space and Earth, a fun club to be in as if being an astronaut wasn't already enough of a marker.
In addition, he told USA Today of seeing the eclipse from space: "It was unlike anything I've ever seen. I joke I'm glad they told us there was an eclipse because it would have been unsettling to look down at Earth and see this black spot moving across. It was really cool."
With a 115-mile width to the path of totality on this occasion, there will be a huge host of places for people to watch the eclipse without missing out on totality.
That said, there are also plenty of locations holding eclipse events that actually won't see totality, so be sure to check out this list of the worst places for the eclipse to make sure you're not accidentally going to one of them.
