Watch: a lunar transit you could not see from Earth

On Thursday morning, at exactly 5:31 a.m. Pacific time, the moon passed across the face of the sun, at least from the perspective of NASA’s space-based Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Although the SDO sees two to three lunar transits of this ilk a year, this one was especially cool for a few reasons.

1. At 2.5 hours, it was the longest lunar transit that the SDO has observed in its four years in space.

2. If you watch the video above closely, you can see the sun release a solar flare and a coronal mass ejection (CME) off to the left just as the transit is coming to an end.

The CME came off the sunspot AR1967. According to SpaceWeather.com, it could hit Earth’s magnetic field on Saturday.

Solar flares and lunar transits. YES! Follow me on Twitter for more like this.