Two satellites were launched into space on Dec. 5, with plans for them to be used to create fake solar eclipses.
The two European Space Agency satellites were launched from India. They’re attached for now and will be separated later. The mission is known as Proba-3 and will focus on studying the wispy crown-like corona encircling the sun.
Europeans maneuvered the satellites into orbit and want to regularly use them to produce artificial solar eclipses of up to six hours. Eclipses, when the moon passes between the sun and the Earth and blocks the sun’s light, rarely happen naturally and only last a maximum of about 7 1/2 minutes.
The eclipses will be created at least twice a week, with the frequency depending on solar activity, European Space Agency mission scientist Joe Zender said in an email.
The $210 million mission aims for at least 1,000 hours of “on demand” totality during its two-year operation. Once their job is done, both satellites will gradually drop lower until they burn up in the atmosphere, likely within five years.
About a dozen countries are supporting the mission, including Austria, Poland, and Spain.
The satellites, flying autonomously, will be in an orbit that takes them more than 37,200 miles from Earth. They will need to be carefully positioned to produce the artificial eclipses.
“The two satellites need to achieve positioning accuracy down to the thickness of the average fingernail while positioned one and a half football pitches apart,” Proba-3 mission manager Damien Galano said in a statement released by the agency.
To maintain their position, the satellites will rely on GPS, star trackers, lasers, and radio links.
Each cube-shaped spacecraft is less than five feet across. One satellite will hold a disk to block the sun from the telescope on the other satellite. This disk will mimic the moon in a natural total solar eclipse, with the darkened satellite posing as Earth.
Scientists need the glaring face of the sun completely blocked to scrutinize the corona encircling it, and it will allow them to get an especially good look close to the solar rim on this mission. They’re particularly interested to learn why the corona is hotter than the surface of the sun, and also want to better understand coronal mass ejections, eruptions that produce billions of tons of plasma with magnetic fields out into space.
The resulting geomagnetic storms can disrupt power and communication on Earth and in orbit. Such outbursts can also produce stunning auroras in unexpected places.
