Space mission creates first ever artificial solar eclipse

The European Space Agency (ESA) has revealed the first images of an artificial total eclipse created by a pair of satellites in space as part of its Proba-3 mission. In March, the two spacecraft, called the Coronagraph and the Occulter, flew 150 metres apart while perfectly aligned for several hours without being controlled from the ground.The extremely precise positions - down to a single millimetre - enabled the satellites to create a total solar eclipse in orbit.
The satellites aligned with the Sun in a way that allowed the Occulter spacecraft to block the giant star's bright disc, casting a shadow across the Coronagraph's optical instrument.This shadow allows the Coronagraph's instrument, which is called ASPIICS, to successfully capture images of the outermost part of the Sun's atmosphere, known as the corona.Scientists increasingly need to study the corona, but find it hard to do so without an eclipse because the sun's surface is one million times brighter.The amazing pictures are uninterrupted by the Sun's bright light."It is exciting to see these stunning images validate our technologies in what is now the world's first precision formation flying mission," said Dietmar Pilz, who is the ESA's director of technology, engineering and quality.
What is the Proba-3 mission all about?
The Sun's corona can reach temperatures of around 1,000,000 degrees Celsius or more. It's much hotter than the sun's surface below and this temperature difference is something that continues to both intrigue and puzzle researchers. The Proba-3 mission aims to tackle this longstanding mystery by studying the corona in more depth. The Coronagraph spacecraft's instrument ASPIICS is able to see more detail, finding fainter features than other missions. "Seeing the first data from ASPIICS is incredibly exciting," said Joe Zender who is a scientist on the Proba-3 project."ASPIICS will contribute to unravelling long-lasting questions about our home star."Rather than relying on humans, the spacecraft lined themselves up with the sun in a manner "akin to driverless cars", the space agency said.When the spacecraft blasted off in December last year, they had enough fuel to keep going for around two years.After five years, it is expected they will burn up in the Earth's atmosphere.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Daily Mail​

2 hours ago

• Daily Mail​

EXCLUSIVE Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom's explosive row over 'cringeworthy' space flight... as Lauren Sanchez's wedding escalates tensions

Orlando Bloom and Katy Perry 's relationship imploded after the singer made her embarrassing journey into space — and now the embattled couple is sparring over who will attend the wedding of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez. The pair were already on the rocks when Perry made the widely-derided 11-minute trip to space in April. The Blue Origin flight, led by Sánchez, quickly became a PR disaster. Perry, in particular, became the internet's punching bag for her eccentric actions, hogging the camera while holding up a daisy - a nod to her daughter - in zero gravity, before bizarrely dropping to her knees and kissing the ground on touchdown. But she received little to no support from Bloom who blasted the 'embarrassing' debacle during an explosive row. 'He told her the whole thing looked ridiculous,' a source in Perry's camp told the Daily Mail. 'He said it was cringeworthy. Embarrassing. This was in the middle of a fight, and it hurt her feelings.' 'Of course she was hurt,' the source continued. 'Imagine going to space — motherf****** space — and your partner isn't impressed. She hoped he'd be more supportive.' Far from resolving their issues, tensions heightened as talk turned to who was going to attend Bezos and Sánchez's upcoming nuptials. The three-day celebration will reportedly kick off on June 24 in Venice, Italy. Bloom, 48, is on the guest list, but Perry, 40, will not be present at the celebrations, according to TMZ. 'She does have prior commitments, but it goes deeper than that,' our insider said, noting that the singer will still be on tour in Australia, which she first announced months before the wedding date and location were unveiled. 'Katy feels like they're really her friends more than his, and yet he's the one going to the wedding' they continued. 'And he's insistent that he goes, which annoys her because he's not particular close to either of them. She feels like it's a 'f*** you' to her from him.' What really stings is his apparent hypocrisy. 'He complains about her going to space, and then wants to go to the wedding of the people who made it possible for her to do this in the first place,' our insider said. 'That's difficult for her to accept. They're already spiraling and now the wedding is another thing that they have to fight about.' Their rocky patch comes at a time of professional turmoil for Perry, who has become the subject of hundreds of insulting internet memes. Earlier this month People claimed Katy's poorly-performing album 143 has caused 'tension' in her relationship with her fiancé. The singer's seventh studio album, 143, was released in September 2024, and received a largely negative response from fans as well as critics, who claimed the record sounds 'generated through AI.' While the album was meant to be empowering to women, critics slammed it as being reductive. Additionally, Perry shared snaps of a topless Bloom and talked freely about the couple's sex life, despite previous agreements to keep their personal life private, with sources at the time telling the Daily Mail that she was leveraging their romance amid the backlash. Her Lifetimes world tour has struggled to shift tickets in some countries, and clips of her futuristic stage show have been posted on Tiktok and Instagram hundreds of times, sparking millions of critical comments and jokes about the singer. A second source close to the couple told the Daily Mail that Bloom is annoyed that Perry is not listening to his advice. 'Katy has not been the same person for over a year now and Orlando has had enough,' they said. 'He advised her against this album. She did it. He advised her against space. She did it. He advised her against this tour and she did it.' 'From where Orlando stands, all he ever wanted was for Katy to be herself,' the source continued. 'He fell in love with her and who she is inside but this past year, he believes, has brought out the worst in her.' Perry and Bloom first met in January 2016. They had a brief breakup in 2017, but later reconciled by March 2018. The pair got engaged on Valentine's Day in 2019 and welcomed their daughter Daisy Dove in August 2020. They were reportedly set to marry in Japan in summer 2020 but were forced to postpone due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is unclear if the couple will survive this rough patch, but Bloom feels that Perry needs to center herself on the things that are important. 'He wants her to be happy and he wants her to be authentic,' the insider continued. 'He just wants her to stop and enjoy the life that she has built.'

Daily Mail​

5 hours ago

• Daily Mail​

HMP Mars: Living on the Red Planet will be like life in PRISON, expert warns

When humans finally settle on Mars, they will be stepping out into one of the most hostile environments in the solar system. But if we want to understand what life will really be like on the Red Planet, we should look to a hostile environment much closer to home. Life for astronauts in a Martian colony will be extremely similar to the conditions inside today's prisons, according to a leading space scientist. From isolation and a lack of personal space to bad food and a rigid routine, astronauts' conditions will be much closer to those of prisoners than explorers. Space agencies have spent decades studying extreme environments like Antarctic research bases to learn how humans might react to living in space. However, Professor Lucy Berthoud, a space systems engineer at the University of Bristol, says that prisons are already the closest parallel to life on Mars. Professor Berthoud told MailOnline that prisoners and astronauts both face: 'Too little personal space and privacy, overcrowding, poor food, unnecessary risks, rigid regimes with no autonomy, little variation in daily activities.' With astronauts trapped 140 million miles from home (225 million km), Professor Berthoud warns they may feel even more isolated than those locked in cells here on Earth. The biggest difference between astronauts and prisoners is obviously that one voluntarily takes a highly sought-after position, while the other has their freedom removed as a punishment. However, once the astronauts actually make it to a Martian colony, their conditions would be remarkably similar. Most obviously, both prisoners and astronauts will be physically trapped inside a cramped, dangerous environment with the same small set of people. In prisons, the European standard for a cell is four metres square per person, but overcrowding means that there is often much less space. On a Martian colony where resources are scarce and survival is the primary goal, astronauts are likely to face similarly cramped quarters. For example, NASA's Apollo Command and Service module, which took astronauts into lunar orbit, had just 6.2 cubic metres of space for three astronauts. This lack of privacy, combined with close proximity to other people, can lead to heightened stress and a much greater risk of conflict. Those tensions are only made worse by the fact that both prisons and Mars are extremely dangerous environments. While the sources of danger are extremely different, this persistent level of threat has the same effect on someone's psychology. Professor Berthoud says: 'Living in a high-risk environment would mean that your threat situation would be constantly switched on, which takes a toll on you psychologically and physically over the long term. 'Astronauts are specially selected to be good at dealing with emergency situations, unlike prisoners, but over the mission length this would still have an effect.' In addition to their living conditions, astronauts and prisoners may find themselves with similar lifestyles. In prisons, those incarcerated have their schedule planned out down to the minute with restrictions on everything from eating and sleeping to working and resting. This is exactly the same situation faced by the astronauts currently living on the International Space Station (ISS). Astronauts on the ISS h ave 15-hour working days with two hours of compulsory exercise, eight hours of work, and only a single hour of personal time. Professor Berthoud points out that this lack of control can lead astronauts to rail against or even disobey NASA's rigid mission guidelines. NASA's astronauts are subject to a gruelling daily schedule with just a single hour of personal time per day Likewise, for both prisoners and astronauts, one of the biggest issues is the availability of fresh, tasty, nutritious food. The UK government standard for prisoners' meals is set at £2.70 per person per day, which means that food is often of low nutritional value and famously unpleasant. While astronauts on Mars are likely to have much more expensive and pleasant food than prisoners, a lack of variety and fresh ingredients will still be a major restriction. On the ISS, NASA has invested huge resources into trying to make space food palatable. However, astronauts losing their appetite and failing to keep their weight up is a constant concern. However, the most important similarity is that both prisoners and astronauts on Mars would face heightened levels of isolation. Prisoners, just like astronauts on a remote planet, are taken away from society and have their contact with friends, family, and the outside world cut to a minimum. Even though astronauts willingly subject themselves to this isolation, they still face the same effects. Professor Berthoud says: 'I feel that the effects of isolation will be similar, but for Mars there will be the added factor of feeling very remote from everyone you care about and love. 'The fastest you could get home would be 6 months, so that would add to the isolation.' Although Professor Berthoud says that life on Mars could be similar to a prison, this doesn't mean NASA should model its Mars colonies after the prison environment. Mars bases should be equipped with measures to maximise privacy and autonomy, while astronauts should be given meaningful activities to help combat monotony. Ultimately, fixing these problems on Mars might even help us make prisons more habitable back here on Earth. Professor Berthoud says: 'I would suggest we would want to rethink prisons to be more like the ideal space base! 'I would imagine that more space, more autonomy, more personalisation, more sense of purpose would help anyone deal better with a stressful situation, even if they are there to keep society safe.' Mars has two miles of WATER buried at its equator - and scientists say it could support the first settlers on the Red Planet Despite once being home to lush oceans of liquid water billions of years ago, any traces of H2O on Mars today are well hidden. But experts say there's two miles of water buried beneath the surface in an area of the planet's equator, known as the Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF). The water is frozen as ice in a layer measuring over two miles (3.7km) thick, according to new data from the Mars Express spacecraft. If melted, the water would cover the whole of Mars in a layer of liquid up to 8.8 feet (2.7 metres) deep, and would be enough to fill Earth's Red Sea.

The Independent

6 hours ago

• The Independent

A radio signal from the beginning of the universe could reveal how everything began

A radio signal from the early universe could allow us to understand how everything that surrounds us began. The signal – known as the 21-centimetre signal – could finally let us understand how the first stars and galaxies switched on, and brought the universe from darkness to light. 'This is a unique opportunity to learn how the universe's first light emerged from the darkness,' said co-author Anastasia Fialkov from Cambridge University, in a statement. 'The transition from a cold, dark universe to one filled with stars is a story we're only beginning to understand.' The signal comes to us from more than 13 billion years ago, just a hundred million years after the Big Bang. The faint glow is created by hydrogen atoms that fill up the space between regions of space where stars are being formed.