CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A pair of European satellites rocketed into orbit Thursday on the first mission to create artificial solar eclipses through fancy formation flying in space.
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
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