In a few months, the European Space Agency will send the Proba-3 mission into space, thanks to which it will be possible to cause an artificial solar eclipse. The unusual instrument is intended to take photos of the face of our daily star.
The solar corona, the outermost layer of the atmosphere of our diurnal star, is of particular interest to scientists. This is where the phenomena responsible for space weather arise, affecting, among others, space vehicles, astronauts and the Earth. The strongest phenomena of this type are coronal mass ejections, i.e. huge clouds of plasma thrown at high speed into interplanetary space.
Because the corona is a million times darker than the Sun's disk, its study requires covering the bright disk. For this reason, solar eclipses are valuable to scientists who study the Sun. The last of them, a total eclipse, occurred on Monday. The moon covered the star's face, and only its glowing corona was visible. This phenomenon could be seen in parts of North and Central America.
Artificial solar eclipse
The European Space Agency (ESA) is planning a pioneering mission that will cause an artificial eclipse. Its goal is to create precise photos of the Sun's corona. The mission called PROBA-3 is the first in history to use two satellites moving in a precise formation.
The unusual instrument is scheduled to be launched into space in August this year and placed in orbit a month later. Together, the satellites will create a 144-meter solar coronagraph. The first of them, Coronograph, weighs 340 kilograms and is designed to observe and photograph the corona of the Sun. The second one, Occulter, weighing 200 kg, has a disk mounted on it, which will cover the Sun while taking photos. PROBA-3 will orbit in an elliptical orbit, reaching its farthest point about 60,000 kilometers from Earth.
Proba-3 mission – visualizationESA
It will last six hours
– We know very little about the solar corona because the solar eclipse phenomenon does not last long, a maximum of 7 minutes and 29 seconds, and we can usually observe it on Earth once a year, said Andrei Zhukov, a scientist at the Royal Observatory (ROB) in Belgium. – Thanks to the mission, it will be possible to create an artificial eclipse that will last six hours – added Zhukov.
According to ESA, the budget of the PROBA-3 mission is EUR 200 million.
Main photo source: ESA