See a Lunar Eclipse From Space

On October 30, as Halloween hangovers were wearing off and costumes for trick-or-treaters were receiving their finishing touches, the Moon decided to celebrate the season by boldly photobombing the Sun.

The stunning new imagery, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), shows what a partial lunar eclipse looks like from the perspective of SDO's perch in geosynchronous orbit. Down on Earth, the Moon was invisible, having just entered its "new" phase, but the Sun-gazing orbiter couldn't miss it. The transit ran from 3:56 PM EDT to 4:56 PM EDT on Sunday and blotted out 59 percent of the Sun's light at its peak.

The contrast between the two bodies looks particularly vivid because the Sun is imaged in extreme ultraviolet light, which emphasizes its tumultuous thermal activity. SDO apparently likes to showcase this particular range of wavelengths during the Halloween season, judging by this awesome image of a "Jack-o-Lantern Sun" from October 2014, which also renders our star in extreme ultraviolet.

This is not the first time the Moon has ostentatiously upstaged one of its cosmic neighbors from the vantage point of NASA's space-based cameras. In August 2015, the Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC), located a full one million miles from Earth, captured the Moon as it photobombed our very own planet with its backside.

As we noted at the time, this indeed means that the Moon mooned us. So the next time somebody criticizes NASA's proactive focus on Earth observation—as Republican Party leader Ted Cruz has in the past—remember that we would be missing out on gems like this without those programs. I, for one, do not want to live in a future where even one Moon photobomb goes unrecorded.

Get six of our favorite Motherboard stories every day by signing up for our newsletter.