Two spacecrafts have achieved a rare milestone: rebuilding the total solar eclipse in space. The European Space Agency (ESA) Prob -3 mission released the first images from a successful test on 16 June, where a satellite blocked the sunlight, allowing the other to occupy the blazing external atmosphere -korona. Unlike fleeting eclipses on Earth, this artificial version provides frequent observation for a long time. “We can see Corona without any particular image processing,” said Andrei Zukov of the Royal Observatory of Belgium. “It was just visible there, such as during a natural total solar eclipse.”
ESA’s Proba-3 spacecraft rebuilds eclipses to study the million-degree corona in unprecedented expansion
According to ESA ReportsThe Prob -3 spacecraft revolves around the Earth in an elliptical path, which is up to 60,000 kilometers at the distant end. During alignment, they float only 150 meters away, putting an exact shade on one satellite. This method allows scientists to block the sun’s bright bright disk and look at the unconscious, million-degree corona, which is some 200 times warm compared to the visual surface of the Sun and can only be seen during the total eclipse. The middle layer is the place where scientists believe that this external region is so light that it is very hot.
So far, twins Satellites With the target of two performances per week, nine tests have been completed. While natural eclipses occur every 18 months and just talk for a few minutes, prob -3 can repeat an eclipse every 20 hours and extinguish it for six hours. This capacity gives scientists a unique opportunity to examine the dynamic and magnetic activity of solar corona.
Prob -3 was removed from India on 5 December. Over the next two years, the spacecraft is estimated to provide 1,000 hours of eclipse data. The search not only makes it possible to inspect the solar behavior systematically, but also helps to increase the solar weather forecast required for the safety of satellites and power grids.
ESA officials see it as a new era in Heliopzix, where the man -made eclipse will fill the observation difference by the rareness of the eclipse clan. Solar eclipse On earth. With each class and eclipse, scientists have in an inch to solve the longests of our star’s fierce halo.