When the Earth takes a bite out of the Sun  Bad Astronomy The
entire universe in blog form April 1 2011 7:00 AM  When the
Earth takes a bite out of the Sun  In a week of ridiculously
gorgeous astronomy pictures hitting the 'net, I keep thinking
they can't get cooler... and then this happens: a seriously cool
picture of the Sun from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory!  Phil
Plait Phil Plait    Yegads! [Click to solareclipsenate.]  Given
that SDO orbits the Earth and sees the Sun from space, why is
the bottom half of the Sun gone in this picture? It's because
we're seeing a solar eclipse which is actually more like a lunar
eclipse except the Moon is not involved.  Hmm, yeah, maybe I'd
better explain. SDO circles the Earth in an inclined orbit*. If
the orbit were directly above the Earth's equator, the Earth
would block the Sun once per day, and that's not so cool for a
satellite designed to continuously observe our nearest star! So
the orbit was inclined a bit, giving SDO an unobstructed view of
the Sun... kinda