How Do We Do It?

Transmitting live video back from remote locations is a complicated business. For the 2016 total solar eclipse in Micronesia, here’s how we did it. From the island of Woleai, our eclipse video was beamed up to a satellite and back down to Earth at Napa, California—taking a matter of milliseconds.

It traveled via fiber-optic cable to Los Angeles, where it was captioned for hearing-impaired viewers. At the Exploratorium, we added Spanish-language commentary and sent the video to our eclipse website and mobile app.

The captioned version was sent to Atlanta and beamed to another satellite, where it was available for download by television news stations and NASA-TV for their own broadcasts. This version also went out to the web and mobile app, making the eclipse visible to individuals and our partner museums across the world.