Ty Roush is a breaking news reporter based in New York City.
A pair of satellites launched by the European Space Agency on Thursday will create the first artificial solar eclipses, allowing scientists to study the sun’s outer atmosphere for longer periods over the next two years as the spacecraft duo flies hundreds of feet apart in Earth’s orbit.
The Proba-3 mission launched aboard a Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, India, around 5:35 a.m. EST on Thursday, the ESA announced, after an issue with the rocket’s propulsion system temporarily delayed the launch on Wednesday.
Proba-3 consists of two satellites—weighing about 1,210 pounds each—that will travel over the next four months to an elliptical orbit above Earth, according to the agency, reaching more than 37,000 miles away at their most distant point and less than 400 miles away at their closest.
After an unspecified period, the satellites will be separated and enter a tandem orbit nearly 500 feet apart, marking the first time spacecraft will fly in a precise formation, the ESA said.
The spacecraft will align in front of the sun to cast a shadow from one to the other, blocking the sun’s light and mimicking a natural solar eclipse for up to six hours at a time.
By blocking the sun’s light, the ESA will be able to study aspects of the sun’s corona, including why the outer atmosphere is hotter than the sun itself, coronal mass ejections—bursts of plasma and particles from the sun’s surface—and how solar winds accelerate.
The two satellites will remain in orbit for the next two years before they gradually drop lower into the Earth’s atmosphere—a process the ESA estimates will take about five years.
Surprising Fact
To create the artificial solar eclipses, the Proba-3 satellites will need to maintain a specific position within one millimeter, or a distance equivalent to the thickness of a fingernail, according to the ESA. The satellites—less than 5 feet wide—rely on GPS, star trackers, lasers and radio links to fly autonomously.
Will The Solar Eclipses Be Visible From Earth?
The artificial solar eclipses created by the Proba-3 satellites will not be visible from Earth, according to the ESA. Images from the eclipses, which will be created up to twice a week starting in March 2025, will be released by the agency, however.
Key Background
The ESA announced the Proba-3 mission in 2014, which is the agency’s fourth flight in a series of low-cost orbital missions. Proba-3, which the agency estimates cost about $210 million, comes after the Proba-V mission that launched in 2012 to map Earth’s vegetation.
The Proba-2 mission launched in 2009 with more than 20 payloads to study the sun from Earth’s orbit, while the Proba-1 satellite launched in 2001 to observe Earth. ESA said Proba-3’s goal of attaining a precise orbit will open “up a whole new era for science and applications” and would result in new missions that could be “assembled on a much larger scale.”
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Prophecy blotting out 1/3 of light coming true just 7 years away from 2025 approximately…
Revelation 8.12
And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise.
Many machines going to be up there to do all this. Earth is going to be a dark home…
What does this mean?
MORE FAMINE – Unable to Grow food outside!
If you don’t how power you will not be able to grow food inside either!
Disasters are detailed in the Bible. These manmade disasters described by Angels sounding God's warnings in the form of a war time instrument called a Trumpet
