The aim of the project is to study the sun's corona
Unless you've been living under a moon rock, you probably remember last year's total solar eclipse.
Now scientists are trying to create a series of artificial solar eclipses – but you don't have to pull out your solar eclipse glasses.
Last month, the European Space Agency (ESA) launched two satellites into orbit from India that will soon work together to produce solar eclipses.
ESA said the eclipses will be visible to one of the satellites, but not to people here on Earth.
The mission, called Proba-3, is designed to help us better understand the Sun's outermost atmosphere, called the corona – the thin ring of light visible around the Moon when it obscures the Sun.
How it will work
Once the two satellites are about 60,000 kilometers above Earth, they will separate and position themselves 150 meters apart, according to ESA.
One satellite floats directly between the sun and the second satellite, which is equipped with a special type of telescope.
Each satellite is cube-shaped and less than 1.5 meters wide. One satellite will carry a circular disk that will act as an artificial moon and cast its shadow on the other satellite. (Image credit: ESA)
When the second satellite faces the Sun, it sees the Sun being eclipsed by the first satellite and can only see the corona.
Why they do it
Scientists want to study the solar corona, but it is almost always obscured by the bright light emanating from the sun's surface.
The only way to see the corona clearly is through solar eclipses, but natural eclipses are rare and may only last a few minutes.
With this project, ESA wants to produce two solar eclipses per week for six hours each over the next two years.
The main goals are to understand why the corona is so much hotter than the surface of the Sun and to better understand coronal mass ejections.
These are huge bursts of plasma from the Sun into space that can cause satellites to malfunction and cause power outages on Earth.
They will also conduct experiments to better understand how to fly satellites in high-precision formations.
ESA expects the first results of the study to be available in March this year.
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With files from The Associated Press