Proba-3: An ISRO-ESA venture to simulate Solar Eclipse

Before people understood that eclipses were natural astronomical events, many cultures had their own stories and explanations for them. Interestingly, many of these featured mythical creatures eating the Sun or the moon, causing people to consider eclipses as a bad omen.

 

 

This autumn (September to November), the European Space Agency (ESA) will start an extraordinary mission: launching Proba-3, the world’s first machine to create an artificial eclipse. This groundbreaking project uses two satellites working together to create a long-lasting, artificial solar eclipse in space—something that has never been attempted before.

 

Proba-3 consists of two satellites that will fly in close formation, keeping an exact distance of 144 metres between them. This setup will let one satellite cast a shadow on the other, creating an artificial solar eclipse for the second satellite. However, if one is expecting a big change on Earth, one probably will not see the kind of eclipse we are familiar with.

 

 

This mission is very important because the Sun is quite an attention-seeker. Its bright rays are so powerful that they block out everything else, making it difficult to detect specific types of radiation. Imagine how difficult it would be to see a firefly—something that science calls a bioluminescent insect, which produces light and is often seen glowing in the dark—with a huge forest fire blazing in the background!

 

 

 

-Core: 15 million°C, extending about 150,000 km

-Radiative Zone: Up to 7 million°C, extending to about 500,000 km

-Convective Zone: 2 million°C, extending to about 700,000 km

 

 

-Photosphere: 5,500°C, about 500 km thick, the Sun’s surface, called the photosphere, is the visible layer and is called the ‘bright face’ of the Sun that emits the light we see from Earth. The photosphere has a temperature of about 5,500°C and is approximately 500 km thick

-Chromosphere: 4,320°C, extending up to 2,000 km

-Corona: Up to 1-3 million°C, extends millions of kilometres into space

 

 

Proba-3’s main scientific goal is to study the Sun’s corona, the dim outer layer usually hidden by the Sun’s bright light. Proba-3 will block the Sun’s ‘bright face’. This will give us a rare, long-lasting view of the corona.

 

Interestingly, the mission will be launched with the PSLV-XL rocket run by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).