Two European satellites have achieved the remarkable feat of producing artificial solar eclipses by maintaining a precise formation in space. This groundbreaking method allows scientists to have extended periods of totality at their disposal.

The European Space Agency revealed images of these eclipses at the Paris Air Show, showcasing the pair of satellites that have been simulating solar eclipses since March. Launched in late 2023, these satellites orbit thousands of miles above Earth.

Operating 492 feet (150 meters) apart, one satellite acts as the moon by blocking the sun during these artificial eclipses. The other satellite then focuses its telescope on the sun's corona, the outer atmosphere that appears as a halo of light.

This intricate and prolonged maneuver demands extreme precision from the cube-shaped spacecraft, which are less than 5 feet (1.5 meters) in size. Their precise positioning, accurate to within a millimeter, is achieved autonomously through GPS navigation, star trackers, lasers, and radio links.

The Proba-3 mission, with a budget of $210 million, has successfully generated 10 artificial solar eclipses during the ongoing checkout phase. The longest eclipse lasted five hours, and scientists aim to achieve six hours of totality per eclipse once scientific observations commence.

Lead scientist Andrei Zhukov from the Royal Observatory of Belgium expressed excitement over the preliminary results, noting that the corona was visible without any special image processing. He anticipates producing an average of two solar eclipses per week during the two-year mission, totaling nearly 200 eclipses and over 1,000 hours of totality.

While past satellites have created imitation solar eclipses, the unique aspect of the Proba-3 mission is the separation of the sun-blocking disk and telescope onto two different satellites. This distance between the satellites provides scientists with a better view of the sun's corona closest to its limb.

ESA's mission manager Damien Galano expressed satisfaction with the quality of the images, attributing it to the unprecedented accuracy of the formation flying during this mission.