NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer spacecraft (ACE) helped solar scientists to study total solar eclipses to better understand how temperatures of solar wind and the Sun's corona could affect space weather that can impact astronaut activities and electronics in space.
The moon orbits an average of 239,000 miles from Earth just the right distance to seem the same size in the sky as the much larger sun. However, this astrophysical body creates a total solar eclipse only about once every 18 months.