How two satellites are mimicking total solar eclipses in space

A pair of European satellites have created the first artificial solar eclipses by flying in precise and fancy formation, providing hours of on-demand totality for scientists.
The European Space Agency released the eclipse pictures at the Paris Air Show on Monday. Launched late last year, the orbiting duo have churned out simulated solar eclipses since March while zooming tens of thousands of miles (kilometers) above Earth.
Flying 492 feet (150 meters) apart, one satellite blocks the sun like the moon does during a natural total solar eclipse as the other aims its telescope at the corona, the sun's outer atmosphere that forms a crown or halo of light.
It's an intricate, prolonged dance requiring extreme precision by the cube-shaped spacecraft, less than 5 feet (1.5 meters) in size. Their flying accuracy needs to be within a mere millimeter, the thickness of a fingernail. This meticulous positioning is achieved autonomously through GPS navigation, star trackers, lasers and radio links.
Dubbed Proba-3, the $210 million mission has generated 10 successful solar eclipses so far during the ongoing checkout phase. The longest eclipse lasted five hours, said the Royal Observatory of Belgium's Andrei Zhukov, the lead scientist for the orbiting corona-observing telescope. He and his team are aiming for a wondrous six hours of totality per eclipse once scientific observations begin.
Scientists already are thrilled by the preliminary results that show the corona without the need for any special image processing, said Zhukov.
"We almost couldn't believe our eyes,' Zhukov said in an email. 'This was the first try, and it worked. It was so incredible.'
Zhukov anticipates an average of two solar eclipses per week being produced for a total of nearly 200 during the two-year mission, yielding more than 1,000 hours of totality. That will be a scientific bonanza since full solar eclipses produce just a few minutes of totality when the moon lines up perfectly between Earth and the sun — on average just once every 18 months.
The sun continues to mystify scientists, especially its corona, which is hotter than the solar surface. Coronal mass ejections result in billions of tons of plasma and magnetic fields being hurled out into space. Geomagnetic storms can result, disrupting power and communication while lighting up the night sky with auroras in unexpected locales.
While previous satellites have generated imitation solar eclipses — including the European Space Agency and NASA's Solar Orbiter and Soho observatory — the sun-blocking disk was always on the same spacecraft as the corona-observing telescope. What makes this mission unique, Zhukov said, is that the sun-shrouding disk and telescope are on two different satellites and therefore far apart.
The distance between these two satellites will give scientists a better look at the part of the corona closest to the limb of the sun.
"We are extremely satisfied by the quality of these images, and again this is really thanks to formation flying' with unprecedented accuracy, ESA's mission manager Damien Galano said from the Paris Air Show.
___
AP journalist John Leicester contributed to this report from Paris.
___
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Daily Mail​

an hour ago

• Daily Mail​

Can't sleep in the heat? Scientists reveal simple sock hack that's guaranteed to help you doze off

With the UK in the grips of 2025's first heatwave, many of us will be struggling to doze off amid the tropical heat. If you can't sleep in the heat, scientists may have a counterintuitive solution. Although it might seem bizarre, putting on a pair of socks before you head to bed could be the key to drifting off peacefully. Studies have shown that this simple hack can help you fall asleep faster, stay asleep longer, and get a better night of rest. Wearing socks has even been proven to be effective at bedroom temperatures up to 23°C - hotter than nighttime temperatures in many places across the country this weekend. This strange trick works because our bodies' sleep and temperature regulation systems are deeply linked. Professor Eus van Someren, head of the Department of Sleep and Cognition at the Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience, told MailOnline: 'The brain not only regulates body temperature, but also reads out skin temperature. 'It may interpret warm feet as the right moment to fall asleep.' Why should you wear socks to bed? Our core body temperature has a day-night rhythm, starting to drop in the evening to reach its lowest point around four in the morning. That means the best time to sleep is when the core body temperature is on its way down. Normally, your body would cool itself close to bedtime by sending blood to the skin in a process called distal vasodilation, which makes the skin hot. Professor van Someren says this is like 'opening the radiator in the heating system in your home.' When you put on socks, this increases the temperature of your skin and creates signals that your brain mistakes for the warming caused by vasodilation. Your brain will then believe that it is time to fall asleep, and you will find it easier to drift off. But wearing socks also helps you get to sleep in a more counterintuitive way. When our skin becomes hot, the brain's temperature control system sends a signal to the body telling it to start venting heat by sending hot blood into veins near the surface. This causes an increase in vasodilation, sending blood rushing to the skin and dropping the core body temperature down to safe levels. Dr Michael Gradisar, head of sleep science and clinical psychologist and Sleep Cycle, says that wearing socks can trick the body into triggering vasodilation. This, in turn, causes the core body temperature to drop and helps you drift off to sleep. Dr Gradisar says: 'For people who need extra help warming their feet to assist their natural thermoregulation, socks can be helpful.' That might be especially useful if you suffer from Raynaud's phenomenon, poor circulation, or other conditions that interfere with blood flow to the extremities. A study published in 2018 by researchers from Seoul National University found that wearing bed socks significantly improved sleep even when the room was a toasty 23°C. Those who wore socks to bed fell asleep 7.5 minutes faster on average and woke up more than seven times less frequently during the night. How can you get the most out of this trick? To make this trick work for you, it's important that you maximise the amount your core body temperature falls before bed. Studies of skin heating techniques show that the best results were achieved when the feet were warmed about one hour before bedtime. That means you should put on socks before you get into bed to trigger the core cooling process early. Wearing the right material can also make a big difference, as you don't want anything that will trap too much heat or moisture. Dr Gradisar says that 'natural fibres like wool help' since these offer the best balance of breathability and warmth. Likewise, a study of sleepers conducted at 30°C and relative humidity of 50 per cent found that those wearing Merino wool sleepwear got a better night's rest than those wearing cotton. Additionally, if you can find a way of cooling down your body while your feet stay hot, that will ensure the best temperature gradient for sleep. Dr Gradisar recommends using a fan or other means to try and keep the bedroom as cool as possible. However, with temperatures over 30°C forecast this weekend, it is also important to avoid making your feet too hot during the night. Professor Bill Wisden, an expert on the neuroscience of sleep from Imperial College London, told MailOnline: 'Heat is like any intrusive stimulus such as pain, or noise or vibration. It wakes you up. 'Even if the socks help you go to sleep, having hot feet in summer will wake you up!' So, if you do find yourself getting too hot as you doze, simply kick the socks off before falling asleep. The increased vasodilation will linger for a while afterwards, and exposing your feet to the air could produce an even greater drop in core temperature, helping you fall asleep faster and stay asleep all night. What if you find socks uncomfortable? Many people may find the idea of wearing socks to bed an extremely unpleasant thought. Luckily, if you are one of those people who like to let their feet breathe, there is another way to get the same effects. Anything you can do to raise the temperature of your skin before getting ready for bed will trigger the same vasodilation effects as putting on a pair of socks. Professor Wisden says: 'I recommend just before bedtime, take a hot shower or warm bath, even on a warm evening. 'At the end of the day, this raises the probability that you will drift off to sleep.' You don't even need to have a full bath or shower if that seems like too much effort. Studies have shown that simply bathing the feet up to the ankle in 40°C water for about 20 minutes, one to two hours before bed, helps people fall asleep about 10 minutes faster on average. So, although it might sound odd, if you want to beat the heat this weekend, the best thing to do is to get as hot as possible before bed.

The Guardian

3 hours ago

• The Guardian

Why the summer solstice is a ‘celestial starting gun' for trees

For millennia, the summer solstice has marked a pivotal moment in the human calendar – a turning point steeped in mythology, when the oak king is said to yield to the holly king, and the days begin to shorten. Now, science is increasingly revealing that trees really do respond to this celestial shift, with changes in their growth and reproductive strategies occuring immediately after the calendar's longest day. A study gives fresh insights into why this happens, with implications for how forests might adapt to changing climates. Although it has long been known that plants use daylight to cue seasonal activities such as leaf growth, botanists have recently begun to question whether the summer solstice itself, which occurs between 20 and 22 June in the northern hemisphere, could act as a celestial 'starting gun' for certain events. Last year, researchers led by Prof Michał Bogdziewicz at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland discovered that, regardless of where in Europe beech trees live, they abruptly open a temperature-sensing window on the solstice, using it to decide how many seeds to manufacture the following year. If it is warm in the days after the solstice, they will produce more flower buds the following spring, leading to a bumper crop of beech nuts in the autumn. But if it's cool they might produce none – a phenomenon known as masting. 'The window of temperature sensitivity opens at the solstice and remains open for about 30 to 40 days. There is no other phenomenon that could so tightly anchor beech trees all across Europe at exactly the same time,' Bogdziewicz said. Swiss researchers also recently discovered that trees in temperate horthern hemisphere forests seemingly switch their growth strategy at around the solstice: warm temperatures before this date accelerate the ageing of their leaves, whereas warm temperatures after it slow down this process. This means it takes longer for their leaves to turn brown in the autumn, maximising their ability to photosynthesise and grow when conditions are favourable. The latest study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, provides a fresh insight into the relationship between trees and the summer solstice. Dr Victor Van der Meersch and Dr Elizabeth Wolkovich at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, analysed 1,000 years of temperature records across Europe and North America, combining them with future climate projections. Their findings suggest that trees reach their thermal optimum – the temperature range where their physiological processes hum most efficiently – around the summer solstice. Remarkably, this peak has remained stable across centuries. 'In Spain the optimal period is slightly earlier, and in Scandinavia it is slightly later – on average across Europe and North America, the summer solstice seems to be an optimal time for plants to make decisions,' Van der Meersch said. 'This was quite surprising because the warmest days are usually in July or August – they are not around the summer solstice.' If the solstice consistently coincides with peak growing conditions, it could make evolutionary sense for plants to use it as a cue – especially since this thermal sweet spot appears to have held steady across time. 'Plants are always trying to find a balance between risk and opportunities,' Van der Meersch explained. 'The further they go into the growing season, the easier it is for them to know if it's a good growing year or a bad one – but there's also less time left to use this information.' The solstice seems to represent a critical juncture in this decision-making process. 'It makes sense for them to switch between one growth strategy or another at this time.' Sign up to Down to Earth The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential after newsletter promotion However, the question of whether they are sensing the change in day length, or a coincidental sweet spot in temperature, remains open. While researchers like Bogdziewicz are exploring how trees detect changes in day length at around the solstice, Van der Meersch thinks temperature may be playing a larger role than previously appreciated. 'Rather than sensing the solstice, perhaps what really matters are the temperature accumulation patterns at around this time,' he said. However, because there is a strong correlation between temperature and day length, 'we need a lot more research to disentangle these complex signals',' he added. 'It is also possible that they rely on a combination of both summer solstice and thermal cues to optimise growth and reproductive timing.' Understanding the mechanism is important, because it could have implications for how forests adapt to the climate crisis. 'If plants are using warmth signals rather than day length this might be a good thing, because they could have a better ability to adapt to local environmental conditions,' Van der Meersch said. 'If they are relying on day length, the solstice will always be fixed to around 21 June, so there is less flexibility.'

Telegraph

3 hours ago

• Telegraph

Bernie Ecclestone fired everyone in the team apart from me

As a man who came up with some of Formula One's greatest innovations, it is not a surprise that Gordon Murray marvels with fascination about the futuristic robots that operated on him last year. For decades, Murray – who spent two successful decades in F1 with Brabham and McLaren – has suffered from acid reflux, which increases the risk of oesophageal cancer. At the start of 2024 he was diagnosed with adenocarcinoma [cancer that starts in the glands]. 'For 15 years I've been going for an endoscopy every year and a biopsy. We caught it with one of those. The problem with oesophageal cancer is that it doesn't have many symptoms until it's too late, which is why the survival rate is very low,' Murray tells Telegraph Sport. Murray's brother Terry died of the disease 11 years ago. From there it was a choice of having surgery straight away or chemotherapy first and then robotic-assisted surgery. Murray chose the latter. 'The oncologist spent the best part of an hour going through the possible side-effects with me and my wife before I started the chemo and boy I got everything,' he says. The most extreme of the side-effects was atrial fibrillation, where Murray's heart rate soared to 180bpm. To remedy this, his heart was stopped and restarted. This delayed his procedure but he eventually had the operation to remove the cancer in July last year. The Da Vinci XI surgical robot used in Murray's procedure is controlled by a doctor. In Murray's case this was Professor Shaun Preston, based at Private Care at Guy's Hospital. Preston and his team have now performed more than 250 robotic-assisted cancer operations. 'The Da Vinci robots allow keyhole surgery to be performed with a magnified, immersive, 3D image that is better than the naked eye,' Professor Preston explains. 'It is like operating from within the abdomen and/or chest.' This groundbreaking technology, which allows surgeons to operate with greater precision, was a natural point of fascination for Murray the engineer. 'The surgeon sits on the other side of the room with a PlayStation, basically, and you are lying there and everything is done with robots,' he says. The surgery was a success and Murray was out of intensive care within six days. He claims to be back to working 11-hour days – although he has been getting used to being fed by tube. Murray, as enthusiastic as ever at 78, sees the similarities in the medical technology used in his operation and his own career. 'It's a bit like us prototyping a racing car. That's the fun bit for me: when you think of an idea and then you have to develop it before you actually go racing,' he says. 'Racing' is still what Murray is best known for, 35 years after he left F1. His years helping to revive Brabham, working with then owner Bernie Ecclestone, were undoubtedly the peak of his (and arguably anybody's) innovation in motorsport. Murray moved to the UK from his native South Africa in 1969 as a 23-year-old. Not too long after, he secured a job on Brabham's design team after meeting with then-designer and co-founder Ron Tauranac. In 1972 the struggling outfit was bought by Bernie Ecclestone, who sacked everyone in the technical team apart from Murray. He became chief designer at just 26, starting a period of revival that would result in 22 grand prix wins and two world championships. 'I should have gone home and had many sleepless nights thinking about it. But I didn't. I just came in in the morning and got stuck in and designed a car I thought would win,' Murray says. 'Bernie Ecclestone was my business partner for 14 years at Brabham. He fired the other four guys and just kept me in and said right, you're it, you're the chief designer – I want a brand new Formula One car.' To this day, Murray is still not totally sure why Ecclestone decided to keep only him on board. 'Nobody has ever got the real answer. One time he said 'I found him under a dust sheet in the corner of the design office'. Another time it was everybody – I don't know who 'everybody' was – told me to fire Gordon so I decided to keep him. Bernie loves coming up with these fun answers.' Murray has a suspicion that interest from other teams – he designed Alain de Cadenet's Duckhams LM for the 1972 edition of Le Mans and was approached by Italian team Tecno to design their F1 car – made Ecclestone think he was worth retaining. Murray says he would 'hate' to design F1 cars today because of the lack of freedom for designers. Back then the latitude in the regulations allowed him space to come up with some of motorsport's most enduring innovations and designs, including structural carbon fibre and pull-rod suspension. There was also the introduction of strategic pit-stops and refuelling in F1 towards the end of the 1982 season with the BT50. 'I did some calculations on the lap-time differential between half tanks and full tanks and that was very easy to calculate. We knew that going from empty tanks to full tanks was about 2.5sec a lap. So, if you could start on half tanks you would have a second-a-lap advantage, every lap,' Murray explains. 'Because there were no rules about refuelling I used pressure – we had a couple of old beer barrels and we pressurised one, I think 2.5bar or something and we could get 30 gallons of fuel in in three seconds. It was highly dangerous!' The problem was that turbo-charger issues were so persistent that they only got to the pit stop once in that period. The chance of a real and lasting advantage, Murray believed, had disappeared. 'Because we never finished a race, I said to Bernie 'we've completely blown it'. We've shown them now for about four or five races what we're going to do and when we arrive at the first race in Brazil [next season], everybody will have a half-tank car, a pit-stop car and they didn't. I couldn't believe our luck!' When you think of innovation and Gordon Murray and embody it within a single Formula One car, though, the machine that will pop into most people's heads is 1978's Brabham BT46B, or the 'fan car'. The design came about almost by accident. Brabham's flat-12 Alfa Romeo engine was too large to go down the ground-effect route of the Lotus 78, so Murray had to come up with another solution. He did so by studying the regulations and finding a loophole. The idea with the fan was to use it to create downforce – which it did, enormously – but because its 'primary purpose' was cooling it was not classified as a moveable aerodynamic device and was permitted within regulations. Getting it to last was problematic, though. 'We did some private testing at Donington and then Brands Hatch and the fans, which were composite plastic, all exploded,' Murray says. 'With only one week before the Swedish Grand Prix I had to recast all the blades in magnesium and machine the plastic hub for the fan in aluminium. When we got to Sweden I had no idea if it would work.' Although Niki Lauda and John Watson had to adapt their driving styles to get the best from the new car ('I had to explain to them that their approach to a corner – forget everything they knew') the Austrian won the race at Anderstorp by 34 seconds. However, after protests and wrangling between the teams and the sport's governing body, the fan concept was banned. Murray's time at Brabham ended in 1986 after two drivers' titles. By that point he decided he wanted out of F1. 'We lost Nelson Piquet, we lost the tyre contract, we lost the BMW engine contract. I thought I've just won two world championships… I should go and do something different. Bernie by then had definitely got his mind set on running Formula One,' Murray says. Ron Dennis at McLaren had eyed Murray to replace Ferrari-bound John Barnard. After some persuading, Murray took up the offer to become the team's technical director for 1987. At the time, McLaren had a reputation for stuffiness and rigid formality. Woking was a stark contrast to Brabham, partly down to the enormous difference in resources. Murray says he was still given latitude to operate, technically and personally. 'My contract said I had a completely free hand, even the way I dressed – so it didn't change much there. Likewise, just like Bernie, Ron Dennis gave me a completely free hand with the technical side of the business.' The result was a perfect end to a storied F1 career and 'a nice way to bow out': three double world championships, with Ayrton Senna taking two drivers' titles and Alain Prost the other. Of all the drivers Murray worked with, it is no shock that he rates Senna as fastest. But he has a lot of affection for another Brazilian – Nelson Piquet, who won two drivers' championships in 1981 and 1983 in Murray's cars. 'He had a bicycle and a flat nearby and he came in every day and sat at my drawing board and asked questions all day. The interaction I had with Nelson in those seven years was very, very special.' After leaving F1, Murray designed the McLaren F1, the company's first sportscar. Its revolutionary design, fittingly, utilised a carbon fibre monocoque. 30 years ago last weekend, a modified F1 GTR won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the last road car to do so. Of all Murray's achievements, he calls this 'top trumps'. 'Forget the fact that it was a GT car, not a prototype – it wasn't supposed to win. I think that is a much harder thing to do than winning a world championship in Formula One because you only get one shot at it. 'When I first thought about doing Le Mans in '72, I was terrified because I knew what went wrong in a grand prix car in two hours. That is like doing a whole season without stopping.'