Astrophotographer snaps ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ shot of solar flare photobombing the ISS

An astrophotographer captured an amazing photo of a powerful solar rocket Photobomber the International Space Station (ISS) while the human uninhabited spacecraft seemed to zoom in on the surface of our house star.
Andrew McCarthy (alias Cosmic background) broke the incredible image on June 15 of a place in the Sonora desert in Arizona. He initially planned to photograph a standard “transit” photo of the ISS passing directly between the earth and the sun. However, while McCarthy installed his camera, he noticed this one sun spot – Nicknamed AR4114- had started to “run out,” he told Live Science.
Thanks to a mixture of skills and luck, McCarthy broke the space station as it whistled almost directly beyond the hot solar stain, revealing shiny plasma superhot loops or solar prominences, a few moments before they were thrown into space by a powerful explosion. Capturing the two objects in a single frame makes a photo “one in a life”, McCarthy written on the social platform x.
“Since I started chasing the ISS [solar] Transits, I dreamed of catching one with an active push, “McCarthy told Live Science in an email.” When I saw the silhouette of the Flash ISS through the frame, I knew it was something special. “”
Being separated from the sun of 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) protected astronauts from the ISS from any potentially harmful radiation from the rocket. It also makes the space station to loom the photo. But in reality, the protuers were much greater, extending up to five times wider than the diameter of the earth. “Something on the small human elements against the scale and the power of the sun is like an inspiring scene,” added McCarthy.
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Solar flares are currently exploding the sun more frequently than usual than the sun approach to the end of the most active phase in its cycle of solar spots, about 11 years old, known as solar. During this period, magnetic instabilities make it easier to facilitate plasma pieces from detaching from the solar surface.
The rocket in the new photo would be a powerful explosion of rude M8.46 which sparked a radio breakdown in certain parts of North America while the solar radiation has temporarily disturbed the sea of plasma in the ionosphere of the earth-the region of the atmosphere more than 30 miles (50 kilometers) above the surface of our planet, according to the Sister Sister Sister Science site (50 kilometers) above From the surface of the planet, according to the Sister Sister of Live Science (50 kilometers) above the surface of our planet, according to the sister surface of the Live Science Sister (50 kilometers) above the surface of our planet, according to the surface of the Sister Science Sister Sister. Space.com.
Part of the plasma in the prominences was also completely removed from the sun, forming a magnetized cloud of rapid particles known under the name of Coronal mass ejection (CME), who glanced at the magnetic field of the earth three days later.
McCarthy appointed the new photo “Kardashev Dreams” in honor of Nikolai Kardashev, a Soviet astronomer who proposed the famous Kardashev scalewhich measures the technological advancement of a planetary civilization as a function of the amount of energy it can exploit.
Photos like these are “a symbol of our first steps in a much larger universe,” said McCarthy.
Shot “Difficult”
Capturing the new striking photo was “much more difficult than I imagined,” said McCarthy; To capture the best view of an ISS solar transit, you need to take the photo around noon, when the sun is directly above. And when you take the photo in the middle of a desert, as McCarthy did, it becomes very difficult, he added.
“Large telescopes, such as the type I need to use for these [photos]Do not manage the heat very well, “said McCarthy.” The components decline and swell in the heat and the air currents of different temperatures swirl in the tube, which makes the focus impossible to concentrate. “The electrical components are also starting to overheat and stop,” he added.
To beat the heat, McCarthy Straped ICE gets carried away on critical components of the camera to prevent them from overheating and has covered as much equipment in a thinking sheet as possible. “This has maintained the barely working equipment,” he said.
Fortunately, all the hard work has borne fruit.
“It was the type of shooting that I have been continuing for so long, and I am delighted to add it to my wallet,” said McCarthy.