[ESA]. At first glance, this is just another image of Earth. But look closely, and you will be able to make out Proba-3’s Coronagraph spacecraft hiding in plain sight, covering parts of the Indonesian Archipelago to the right of the Indian Ocean’s vast expanse.
Still having trouble spotting it? Move the slider to the right, and the black-and-white spacecraft will pop up in the foreground.
While the pictured Coronagraph only has eyes for the Sun and its surrounding corona, the mission’s other spacecraft – the Occulter – uses a camera system to autonomously adjust its position relative to the Coronagraph.
The camera system consists of a wide-angle camera (WAC), tracking a set of flashing LED lights on the Coronagraph spacecraft, supplemented by a narrow-angle camera (NAC) that enables a more precise positioning.
Through exquisite, millimetre-scale formation flying, the dual satellites making up ESA’s Proba-3 will accomplish what was previously a space ‘mission impossible’: cast a precise shadow from one spacecraft to the other, in the process blocking out the fiery face of the Sun to observe its ghostly surrounding atmosphere, the corona, on a prolonged basis. — ESA
In addition to enabling Proba-3’s formation flying operations and solar corona observations, the Occulter’s camera system provides us with stunning images of Earth when the angle is just right.
This image was taken on 10 July 2026 during a routine operation to bring the two spacecraft from a relative safe orbit to a distance of 147 metres from each other, in preparation for a formation flight.
While the monochrome image on the right shows us exactly what the Occulter’s cameras see, the left-side image was artificially coloured to make our spacecraft spotting easier.
This image was taken by the wide-angle camera (WAC) onboard Proba-3’s Occulter spacecraft and processed by the Royal Observatory of Belgium.
Astrobiology,
