ESA said it is using artificial eclipses and digital simulations to prepare for the NASA eclipse on 12 August 2026, when parts of Europe will experience a total solar eclipse. The mission is aimed at extending coronal imaging beyond the few minutes available in a natural eclipse.
Andrei Zhukov and Proba-3
Andrei Zhukov, the principal investigator for the ASPIICS instrument at the Royal Observatory of Belgium, said the latest Proba-3 image was the 62nd eclipse of the mission's nominal operations. “This is the 62nd eclipse of Proba-3's nominal operations – a part of the mission during which we acquire coronal images.”
He said the image was taken about two weeks before the upcoming natural eclipse on 12 August. “What makes this one unique is that it was taken about two weeks before the upcoming natural eclipse on 12 August.”
Zhukov added that the timing matters because the Sun takes two weeks to rotate halfway around its axis. “It takes the Sun two weeks to rotate halfway around its axis, so if we mirror the image horizontally, we get a prediction of what the corona will look like during the natural eclipse seen from Earth two days from now.”
Solar Orbiter in the days before 12 August
ESA-led Solar Orbiter is running a special observation campaign in the days leading up to 12 August. ESA said the point of that work is to pair digital modeling with real images from Proba-3, giving researchers a longer look at the corona than the brief natural event allows.
Total solar eclipses occur around once, very rarely twice a year, in different places across the globe. The 12 August 2026 total solar eclipse will completely shield the Sun for parts of Greenland, Iceland, Spain and Portugal, turning daylight into twilight for up to just over two minutes.
The Coronagraph and space weather
ESA developed Proba-3 to create artificial eclipses. The Occulter spacecraft acts as the Moon and blocks the Sun for The Coronagraph spacecraft, with the two satellites flying 150 metres apart and operating as a single spacecraft.
The Coronagraph uses ASPIICS to capture images of the solar corona for hours at a time. That longer viewing window is designed to bridge the gap between the Sun's surface and the outer corona, where space weather originates and where coronal mass ejections arise before moving into the Solar System.
Space weather can disrupt satellite networks, communication infrastructure, power grids and other technologies. The ongoing Proba-3 eclipses and the Solar Orbiter campaign are ESA's closest approach to tracking how the corona may change around the 12 August 2026 total solar eclipse.
