The European Space Agency (ESA) has released stunning time-lapse footage of three solar explosions exploding from the sun into space during an “artificial solar eclipse.” Unique footage captured by the newly operational Proba 3 mission could help scientists solve one of the biggest mysteries surrounding our home planet, researchers say.
The Proba-3 mission consists of two spacecraft, called Coronagraph and Occulter, and was launched into a highly elliptical orbit around Earth in December 2024. By perfectly aligning the coronagraph behind the occulter, scientists will be able to observe the Sun with its bright center completely obscured, similar to what you would see from a planet’s surface during a solar eclipse, but more frequently and over longer periods of time. This will allow researchers to study the hidden subtleties of the sun’s faint atmosphere, or corona, in a way never before possible.
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During the video, three main plasma plumes are shot out from the sun. At first glance, these look like solar flares, large explosions that can cause solar storms toward Earth. But if you look closely at the solar disk, you won’t see any bright flashes, the obvious signs of a flare. Instead, what we’re seeing are what researchers call prominences, loops of plasma towering over the sun’s surface that get so stretched that they break, sending ionized gas flying into space.
Although prominences are less powerful than flares, they are just as valuable to researchers because they are usually harder to spot, Andrei Zhukov, a researcher at the Royal Observatory of Belgium and principal investigator of the Proba-3 chronograph, explained in a statement. “It’s unusual to see so many prominence eruptions in such a short period of time, so I’m very happy that we were able to capture them so clearly during our observation period.”
The bright light emitted by prominence eruptions suggests that they are significantly hotter than the surrounding corona. But in reality, their plasmas are much cooler, “only about 10,000 degrees” compared to the million-degree corona, Dzhokov said.
Zhukov said the extremely high temperature of the corona, which is “about 200 times hotter than the sun’s surface,” is one of the sun’s greatest mysteries. Until now, scientists have struggled to explain why the corona is so much hotter than the rest of the sun, and images like this could be the key to figuring that out, he added.
All eyes are on the sun
Since it began operating about seven months ago, Proba-3 has now observed at least 50 different solar eclipses and is expected to collect hundreds more over the next few years, ESA said. However, this is not the only new technology that is making waves in the solar physics community.
For example, in June 2025, NASA’s CODEX telescope mounted outside the International Space Station collected the first images of the Sun, revealing never-before-seen coronal perturbations related to the solar wind.
Last year, Hawaii’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope and ESA’s Solar Probe, both due to become operational in 2021, also took the most detailed photos of the sun’s surface and the first-ever images of the sun’s south pole, respectively.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has swooped into the Sun more repeatedly than any previous probe, and it has also taken surprising photos of our home star that may help unravel the secrets of multiple suns.
All of these results were achieved when the sun was at its most active, or solar maximum, and could provide clues about how powerful solar storms will affect Earth in the future.
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