This NASA photo made me realize I’d never considered what an eclipse looks like from space. Here is a beautiful photo of Mother Earth’s experience of the eclipse. It might be hard to notice at first, but look for the shadow over the Libya-Chad area of the top part of Africa, west of the Nile  River.

The image above shows the total solar eclipse of March 29, 2006 as observed from the MSG satellite, in geostationary orbit 22,369 mi (36,000 km) above the equator.

Note that the eclipsed area, where the shadow of the full Moon reached the Earth’s surface, lies over the cloudless, east central Sahara Desert.

The region that experienced a total solar eclipse at the time this image was acquired (10:00 UTC) is located at the center of the deeply shadowed region (umbra). This region has a diameter of about 112 mi (180 km). The dark region (penumbra) just outside the deepest shadow experienced a partial solar eclipse.

Image provided by: Maximilian Reuter; Maximilian’s website
Summary Author: Maximilian Reuter; Susanne Pfeifer; Jim Foster

epod.usra.edu/blog/2011/08/total-solar-eclipse-from-the-perspective-of-space.html

From Earth Science Picture of the Day at epod.usra.edu/blog/2011/07/mycorrhizal-fungi.html for July 24, 2011.

(EPOD is a service of NASA’s Earth Science Division and the EOS Project Science Office (at Goddard Space Flight Center) and the Universities Space Research Association.)

Photographer: Phil Lachman
Summary Author: Phil Lachman

The photo above shows a lovely group of mushrooms nestled against the trunk of a eucalyptus tree. The association between the fungi and the tree however is no accident. This is a mutualistic relationship, where the two species assist each other, and in fact probably would be poorer without each other. Mutualism is any relationship between two species of organisms that benefits both species. Up to a quarter of the mushrooms you see while walking through the woods actually make their living through a mutualistic relationship with the trees in the forest. Remember of course that the mushroom is just the reproductive structure of a far more extensive organism consisting of a highly intertwined mass of fine white threads called a mycelium.

The word mycorrhiza is derived from the Classical Greek words for “mushroom” and “root.” In a mycorrhizal association, the fungal hyphae of an underground mycelium are in contact with plant roots but without the fungus parasitizing the plant. While it’s clear that the majority of plants form mycorrhizas, the exact percentage is uncertain, but it’s likely to lie somewhere between 80 and 90 percent. When the fungus’ mycelium envelopes the roots of the tree the effect is to greatly increase the soil area covered by the tree’s root system. This essentially extends the plant’s reach to water and nutrients, allowing it to utilize more of the soil’s resources. This mutualistic association provides the fungus with a relatively constant and direct access to carbohydrates, such as glucose and sucrose, supplied by the plant. In return the plant gains the benefits of the mycelium’s higher absorptive capacity for water and mineral nutrients (due to comparatively large surface area of mycelium-to-root ratio), thus improving the plant’s mineral absorption capabilities. Photo taken on May 7, 2011.