The European Space Agency has released a striking video showing the Moon’s shadow racing across Europe during the total solar eclipse of 12 August 2026, captured entirely from geostationary orbit.
The footage offers a rare perspective on an event that briefly plunged parts of the continent into darkness.
Between the periods of 20:26 and 20:34 CEST, there was a thin strip covering Greenland, Iceland, and Spain, along with a portion of northern Portugal that saw a total eclipse of the sun.
According to ESA, the satellite is orbiting 36,000 kilometres above the Earth’s surface and focuses its sensors on Europe and northern Africa, thereby allowing it to observe the path of the shadow from its starting point in Greenland and Iceland to its ending point in northeastern Portugal and Spain.
Although the observers on the Earth managed to observe the totality of the eclipse for several minutes, the satellite being at a greater distance could capture the whole process of the shadow in one video animation.
Clearly, the size of the shadow is much larger and quicker in comparison to the one perceived from the ground.
According to ESA, the spacecraft keeps its instruments directed towards Europe and northern Africa from a height of 36,000 kilometres from the Earth’s surface, which allows the device to monitor the passage of the shadow along its entire path from Greenland and Iceland to northeastern Portugal and Spain.
While observers on the ground witnessed the totality for several minutes, the spacecraft’s higher position enabled it to view the shadow’s entire passage in one video animation.
It is evident how much larger and faster this shadow is than what an observer on the ground sees.
