Richard Parks The European Space Agency (ESA) has launched two satellites on a mission to create artificial solar eclipses, offering a unique opportunity for solar research. The satellites were launched from India on Thursday and will fly in perfect formation, maintaining an incredible precision of just 1 mm, in order to generate artificial eclipses.
Advancing Solar Research with Extended Eclipse Observations
These simulated eclipses, which will last up to six hours, will provide scientists with an unprecedented chance to study the Sun’s corona, the Sun’s outermost atmosphere. The mission aims to gain insights into the Sun’s complex behavior, including its hot corona and coronal mass ejections, which can affect Earth’s magnetic field.
With Proba-3’s two-year operation, the satellites will create eclipses twice a week, delivering 1,000 hours of “on-demand” totality for solar research. This mission is expected to significantly enhance our understanding of solar phenomena, which are critical to space weather forecasting and satellite protection.