麻豆淫院

During a solar eclipse, astronomers who study heliophysics are able to study the sun's corona鈥攊ts outer atmosphere鈥攊n ways they are unable to do at any other time.

The brightest part of the sun is so bright that it blocks the faint light from the corona, so it is invisible to most of the instruments astronomers use. The exception is when the during an eclipse. But , I know eclipses are rare, they last only a few minutes, and they are visible only on narrow paths across Earth. So, researchers have to work hard to get their equipment to the right place to capture these short, infrequent events.

In their quest to learn more about the sun, scientists at the European Space Agency have built and launched a new probe designed specifically to .

Meet Proba-3

This probe, , works just like a real solar eclipse. One spacecraft, which is roughly circular when viewed from the front, orbits closer to the sun, and its job is to block the bright parts of the sun, acting as the moon would in a real eclipse. It casts a shadow on a second probe that has a camera capable of photographing the resulting artificial eclipse.

Having two separate spacecraft flying independently but in such a way that one casts a shadow on the other is a challenging task. But future missions depend on scientists figuring out how to make this precision choreography technology work, and so .

This technology is helping to pave the way for future missions that could include satellites that dock with and deorbit dead satellites or powerful telescopes with instruments located far from their main mirrors.

The side benefit is that researchers get to practice by taking important scientific photos of the sun's corona, allowing them to learn more about the sun at the same time.

An immense challenge

The two satellites launched in 2024 and that approach Earth as close as 372 miles (600 kilometers)鈥攖hat's about 50% farther from Earth than the International Space Station鈥攁nd reach more than 37,282 miles (60,000 km) at their most distant point, about one-sixth of the way to the moon.

During this orbit, the satellites move at speeds between 5,400 miles per hour (8,690 kilometers per hour) and 79,200 mph (127,460 kph). At their slowest, they're still moving fast enough to go from New York City to Philadelphia in one minute.

While flying at that speed, they can control themselves automatically, without a human guiding them, and fly 492 feet (150 meters) apart鈥攁 separation that is longer than the length of a typical football stadium鈥攚hile still keeping their locations aligned to about one millimeter.

They needed to maintain that precise flying pattern for hours in order to take a picture of the sun's corona, and .

The Proba-3 mission is also studying space weather by observing high-energy particles that the sun ejects out into space, sometimes in the direction of Earth. the aurora, also known as the northern lights, on Earth.

While the aurora is beautiful, solar storms can also . The hope is that Proba-3 will help scientists continue learning about the sun and in time to protect sensitive satellites.

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