[SatNews] Eclipses are fascinating. Despite the sophistication of the world, there is something quite primitive when the sun (or moon) disappears. And so it was...

as images from the European Space Agency's Proba-2 satellite captured the moon sweeping across the sun during a solar eclipse on November 13.

Proba-2's ultraviolet camera was trained right on the sun during the eclipse, resulting in excellent footage of solar storms, sunspots and other solar weather as the moon glided across.

Although parts of the southern hemisphere witnessed a total solar eclipse in which the moon entirely blocked out the sun, the satellite's vantage point captured the event as three partial eclipses.

This isn't the first eclipse to occur in 2012. In May, an annular solar eclipse was visible in East Asia and across the western United States. The eclipse blocked about 94 percent of the sun, producing a brilliant "ring of fire" effect.

Tuesday's eclipse was a rarer event, and more than 50,000 people gathered in northern Australia to watch.

Meanwhile, on November 28, the moon will pass through the outer portion of Earth's shadow, called the penumbra, during a penumbral lunar eclipse. Observers in western Canada and the United States will have the best views of that event.