When the Earth photobombs the Sun

The Solar Dynamics Observatory is a NASA satellite that observes the Sun 24 hours a day. It orbits the Earth, placed carefully so that it takes 24 hours to circle the Earth once -- what we call a geosynchronous orbit. This maximizes its output, and allows scientists to squeeze as much data from it as possible. But, twice a year, the geometry of SDO's orbit aligns in such a way that the Earth itself gets between the observatory and the Sun. When that happens, you get an eclipse! We're in one of those "eclipse seasons" now, and around midnight last night UTC one such eclipse occurred. The folks at SDO created a nifty video from the images collected during that time: