{"id":856575,"date":"2026-09-22T12:14:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T12:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/856575\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T12:14:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T12:14:17","slug":"apod-2026-september-22-chance-triple-alignment-plane-space-station-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/856575\/","title":{"rendered":"APOD: 2026 September 22 &#8211; Chance Triple Alignment: Plane, Space Station, Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p-md margin-0 media-detail-hero__description\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tExplanation: This shot captured an unexpected silhouette. \u00a0 Which is it? It isn&#8217;t the <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/sun\/sunspots\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sunspots<\/a>, the small dark regions caused by concentrated <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/1Nr-KtlMIKI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">magnetic field<\/a>s visible around the Sun&#8217;s bright disk. \u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap260211.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sunspots<\/a> typically last for weeks and were expected, since these spots were seen previously. It isn\u2019t the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/international-space-station\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">International Space Station<\/a> (ISS), the <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap220411.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">small<\/a> dark <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap161105.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">structure<\/a> on the middle left.\u00a0 This is\u00a0because the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.petrhoralek.com\/?p=26197\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">featured picture<\/a> was planned with sub-second timing to record the <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap250618.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">iconic structure<\/a> passing before the <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/sun\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sun<\/a>. It is the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.grc.nasa.gov\/www\/k-12\/VirtualAero\/BottleRocket\/airplane\/airplane.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">airplane<\/a>. Just as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo?fbid=999397279455516&amp;set=a.149603584434894\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">this exposure<\/a> was taking place in June, from <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Prasek\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Prasek<\/a> in the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Czech_Republic\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Czech Republic<\/a>, an airplane began its own miniature <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap260903.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">partial eclipse<\/a>. The result is this <a href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/photos\/a-group-of-cats-sitting-on-top-of-a-wooden-bench-oUmA5r-vv0g\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">triply aligned<\/a> image of our Sun. The photographer estimates that the chance of any <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/apod\/random-apod\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">random<\/a> Sun image containing <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/image-article\/apod-2021-october-10-full-moon-silhouettes\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">silhouettes<\/a> of both a space station and an airplane, from that location, is about 30 million to one.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>APOD&#8217;s main NASA site is <a href=\"https:\/\/asterisk.apod.com\/viewtopic.php?t=45023\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">moving<\/a>: From <a href=\"https:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">apod.nasa.gov<\/a> to <a href=\"https:\/\/science.nasa.gov\/apod\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">science.nasa.gov\/apod<\/a><br \/>Tomorrow&#8217;s picture: open space\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Explanation: This shot captured an unexpected silhouette. \u00a0 Which is it? It isn&#8217;t the sunspots, the small dark&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856576,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[337743,79,193],"class_list":["post-856575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-apod","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856575"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856575\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}