Space mission creates first ever artificial solar eclipse
The European Space Agency (ESA) has revealed the first images of an artificial total eclipse created by a pair of satellites in space as part of its Proba-3 mission. In March, the two spacecraft, called the Coronagraph and the Occulter, flew 150 metres apart while perfectly aligned for several hours without being controlled from the ground.The extremely precise positions - down to a single millimetre - enabled the satellites to create a total solar eclipse in orbit.
The satellites aligned with the Sun in a way that allowed the Occulter spacecraft to block the giant star's bright disc, casting a shadow across the Coronagraph's optical instrument.This shadow allows the Coronagraph's instrument, which is called ASPIICS, to successfully capture images of the outermost part of the Sun's atmosphere, known as the corona.Scientists increasingly need to study the corona, but find it hard to do so without an eclipse because the sun's surface is one million times brighter.The amazing pictures are uninterrupted by the Sun's bright light."It is exciting to see these stunning images validate our technologies in what is now the world's first precision formation flying mission," said Dietmar Pilz, who is the ESA's director of technology, engineering and quality.
What is the Proba-3 mission all about?
The Sun's corona can reach temperatures of around 1,000,000 degrees Celsius or more. It's much hotter than the sun's surface below and this temperature difference is something that continues to both intrigue and puzzle researchers. The Proba-3 mission aims to tackle this longstanding mystery by studying the corona in more depth. The Coronagraph spacecraft's instrument ASPIICS is able to see more detail, finding fainter features than other missions. "Seeing the first data from ASPIICS is incredibly exciting," said Joe Zender who is a scientist on the Proba-3 project."ASPIICS will contribute to unravelling long-lasting questions about our home star."Rather than relying on humans, the spacecraft lined themselves up with the sun in a manner "akin to driverless cars", the space agency said.When the spacecraft blasted off in December last year, they had enough fuel to keep going for around two years.After five years, it is expected they will burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.
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