EUROPEAN SATELLITES LAUNCHED TO CREATE ARTIFICIAL SOLAR ECLIPSES IN A TECH DEMO

A pair of European satellites rocketed into orbit Thursday on the first mission to create artificial solar eclipses through fancy formation flying in space.

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Each fake eclipse should last six hours once operations begin next year. That’s considerably longer than the few minutes of totality offered by a natural eclipse here on Earth, allowing for prolonged study of the sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere.

The launch took place from India.

“We are a very happy science team here” in India, the European Space Agency’s mission scientist Joe Zender said via email.

Billed as a tech demo, the two satellites will separate in a month or so and fly 492 feet (150 meters) apart once reaching their destination high above Earth, lining up with the sun so that one spacecraft casts a shadow on the other.

This will require extreme precision, within just one millimeter, equivalent to a fingernail’s thickness, according to the European Space Agency. To maintain their position, the satellites will rely on GPS, star trackers, lasers and radio links, flying autonomously.