Scientists create artificial eclipses in bid to understand solar storms
The European Space Agency has spearheaded a £154 million effort to understand the Sun's corona, which could provide unprecedented insight into to processes behind solar storms
Stunning new pictures have captured the delicate moment top scientists were able to recreate a solar eclipse by placing orbiting spacecraft within a fingernail's width of one another tens of thousands of miles above the Earth.
The European Space Agency (ESA) launched two satellites into the atmosphere in March last year, making them dance across one another after they settled just 150 metres apart. The two craft had been meticilously placed to within a fingernail's width to create the ideal conditions for study, with scientists hailing "incredible" results from the staged intersection. Incredible pictures have captured the process - which promises to massively advance the world's understanding of its star - on camera.
New pictures exhibited by the ESA at the Paris Air Show capture the two spacecraft as they float into position in outer space, with the sun seen in the background before they attempt the delicate atmospheric dance.
Another picture from the agency shows the result, with green-hued waves seen shooting out from behind the satellites after they align. The ESA said the pictures were taken by one of the satellites, which was positioned direcly in front of the other as it blocked the Sun, catching its corona - the the star's outer atmosphere.
The intricate, prolonged dance requires extreme precision by the cube-shaped spacecraft, which are less than five feet (1.5 metres) in size. Their flying accuracy needs to be within a millimeter, the thickness of a fingernail.
The meticulous positioning is achieved autonomously through GPS navigation, star trackers, lasers and radio links, and the entire mission, Dubbed Proba-3, has set the ESA back a massive $210 million (£154 million). But it has generated 10 successful solar eclipses so far during the ongoing checkout phase, the longest of which lasted five hours.
Andrei Zhukov of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, the lead scientist for the orbiting corona-observing telescope, said he and his team are aiming to make the clipse last six hours by the time scientific observations begin this coming July.
But Mr Zhukov said scientists are already thrilled by the preliminary results that show the corona without the need for any special image processing. He told the Associated Press: "We almost couldn't believe our eyes. This was the first try, and it worked. It was so incredible."
Mr Zhukov anticipates an average of two solar eclipses per week being produced for a total of nearly 200 during the two-year mission, yielding more than 1,000 hours of totality in total.
Such a significant amount of time would give scientists an unprecedented opportunity to explore the sun's corona, which has mystified physicists for centuries. Full solar eclipses typically produce just a few minutes of totality when the moon lines up perfectly between Earth and the sun - on average just once every 18 months.
Coronal mass ejections result in billions of tons of plasma and magnetic fields being hurled out into space, occasionally resulting in geomagnetic storms, which can have devastating effects on the Earth.
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Daily Mirror
7 hours ago
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Scientists create artificial eclipses in bid to understand solar storms
The European Space Agency has spearheaded a £154 million effort to understand the Sun's corona, which could provide unprecedented insight into to processes behind solar storms Stunning new pictures have captured the delicate moment top scientists were able to recreate a solar eclipse by placing orbiting spacecraft within a fingernail's width of one another tens of thousands of miles above the Earth. The European Space Agency (ESA) launched two satellites into the atmosphere in March last year, making them dance across one another after they settled just 150 metres apart. The two craft had been meticilously placed to within a fingernail's width to create the ideal conditions for study, with scientists hailing "incredible" results from the staged intersection. Incredible pictures have captured the process - which promises to massively advance the world's understanding of its star - on camera. New pictures exhibited by the ESA at the Paris Air Show capture the two spacecraft as they float into position in outer space, with the sun seen in the background before they attempt the delicate atmospheric dance. Another picture from the agency shows the result, with green-hued waves seen shooting out from behind the satellites after they align. The ESA said the pictures were taken by one of the satellites, which was positioned direcly in front of the other as it blocked the Sun, catching its corona - the the star's outer atmosphere. The intricate, prolonged dance requires extreme precision by the cube-shaped spacecraft, which are less than five feet (1.5 metres) in size. Their flying accuracy needs to be within a millimeter, the thickness of a fingernail. The meticulous positioning is achieved autonomously through GPS navigation, star trackers, lasers and radio links, and the entire mission, Dubbed Proba-3, has set the ESA back a massive $210 million (£154 million). But it has generated 10 successful solar eclipses so far during the ongoing checkout phase, the longest of which lasted five hours. Andrei Zhukov of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, the lead scientist for the orbiting corona-observing telescope, said he and his team are aiming to make the clipse last six hours by the time scientific observations begin this coming July. But Mr Zhukov said scientists are already thrilled by the preliminary results that show the corona without the need for any special image processing. He told the Associated Press: "We almost couldn't believe our eyes. This was the first try, and it worked. It was so incredible." Mr Zhukov anticipates an average of two solar eclipses per week being produced for a total of nearly 200 during the two-year mission, yielding more than 1,000 hours of totality in total. Such a significant amount of time would give scientists an unprecedented opportunity to explore the sun's corona, which has mystified physicists for centuries. Full solar eclipses typically produce just a few minutes of totality when the moon lines up perfectly between Earth and the sun - on average just once every 18 months. Coronal mass ejections result in billions of tons of plasma and magnetic fields being hurled out into space, occasionally resulting in geomagnetic storms, which can have devastating effects on the Earth.
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