European space agency is preparing to create a solar eclipse to study the sun

The European Space Agency (ESA) is preparing to create its own solar eclipse so researchers can study one of the most difficult parts of the sun’s structure to observe: its fiery corona. To do so, two separate spacecraft are flown 150 meters apart and positioned so that one satellite (called the “occulter”) blocks out everything but the corona from the other satellite, called a coronagraph. They hope to use the equipment to observe the corona.

The mission’s two aircraft will need to fly “in formation precise to millimeter precision” using satellite navigation, radio-based satellite interlinks, cameras and laser beams reflected between them. . ESA technical director Dietmar Pilz said in a statement that it would be a “highly technical” challenge to make the two machines “act as if they were one gigantic 150-metre long instrument”. Ta. ESA said the spacecraft aims to observe six hours of solar eclipses for every 19 hours and 36 minutes of orbit.

One reason scientists are so excited to study the sun’s corona is its role in the solar system’s weather. In addition to being magically hotter than the sun’s surface, it contributes to the solar wind, and its coronal mass ejections have potential effects on Earth, ranging from the dance of light in Earth’s aurora borealis to massive power outages ( Think back to every headline you’ve ever seen: Internet Apocalypse Due to Solar Storm). One of the objectives of the mission, known as Proba-3, is to measure the sun’s total energy output to inform climate modeling, ESA said.

There are coronagraphs on Earth and in space, but the ESA says there is a limit to what they can accomplish because light tends to diffract or spill off the edges of the disks that block it. . Placing the shielding disk at a distance is helpful, but incorporating it into a single spacecraft is impractical. ESA said in a statement that NASA tried to accomplish something similar in 1975 using an Apollo capsule to block out the sun on the Soviet Union’s Soyuz spacecraft.

The agency hopes to launch the Proba-3 mission in September. Today’s release comes as many in the United States prepare to watch the ultimate occulter, the Moon, cross the sun on April 8th, causing a total solar eclipse that will sway from South Texas to Maine. It was conducted.