LIVE! Europe Launches Proba-3 To Study The Sun...With Artifical Eclipses!

Join us LIVE for the launch of Europe's Proba-3 mission, to study the Sun's atmosphere, or "corona". Normally one can only see the corona during a total eclipse, but the two Proba-3 spacecraft will generate their own!

The latest member of ESA’s family of in-orbit demonstration missions, Proba-3 is in fact two spacecraft being launched together, which in orbit will separate to begin performing precise formation flying, precise to a single millimetre, about the thickness of an average fingernail.

To prove their performance, Proba-3 has been devoted to an ambitious scientific goal. The pair will line up precisely with the Sun 150 m apart so that one casts a precisely controlled shadow onto the other.

By blocking out the fiery disc of the Sun, Proba-3’s ‘Occulter’ spacecraft will mimic a terrestrial total solar eclipse, to open up views of the Sun’s faint surrounding atmosphere, or ‘corona’, which is a million times fainter than its parent star. Proba-3’s second ‘Coronagraph’ spacecraft hosts the optical instrument that will observe the solar corona.

On Earth, total solar eclipses only occur every 18 months on average, and last just for a few minutes. Solar scientists have to travel all over the world to take advantage of them. Proba-3 will be able to create solar eclipses on demand, observing closer to the edge of the Sun than any previous Earth- or space-based instrument, down to just 1.1 solar radii. And it will do so for six hours per 19-hour 36-minute orbit.

Join us for our live coverage and ask your questions to our expert panel!

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