The mission, known as Proba-3, aims to study the sun’s corona and its role in weather in our solar system. Scientists hope this will help them better understand the processes occurring on the Sun and their effects on Earth, including the solar wind and coronal mass ejections. One of the mission’s goals is to measure the sun’s overall energy flux to improve climate modelling.
Although coronagraphs already exist on Earth and in space, the ESA notes that their capabilities are limited due to diffraction, or the propagation of light beyond the edge of the blocking disk. Removing the disk would help further, but it’s impractical to create this in a single spacecraft. Therefore, ESA plans to use two satellites that will fly in a precise formation with millimeter precision.
Source: Ferra
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