The Sky at Night 255x2 - Hiding in Starlight

Total solar eclipses, like the one seen last month in NorthAmerica, allow us to see details of the Sun that can't be seenat any other time. So, this month, The Sky at Night teamlooks at how scientists are creating eclipses on demand anddiscovering the secrets that can be revealed hidden in thatstarlight, including habitable planets like our own.MaggieAderin-Pocock goes to Belgium, where the European SpaceAgency's Proba-3 mission is going through its final testingstages. This ground-breaking mission aims to fly two satellitestogether in formation, with one satellite acting like the Moonduring an eclipse, blocking out the central light of the Sun.This allows the other satellite to image the corona, the Sun'souter atmosphere as seen during an eclipse. Maggie meets DrDamien Galano from ESA, who tells her all about the challengesof the mission and what it hopes to achieve. Maggie then goeson to meet satellite operations test engineer Marie Beeckman,who takes her up close to the satellites to find out how thetesting is going.Meanwhile Pete Lawrence is out and about inBristol, meeting a team of scientists and amateur astronomers.He discovers how input from the amateurs was crucial to thediscovery of two exoplanets colliding, which had caused thedimming of a star.Finally, Chris Lintott is in Glasgow meetingProfessor Beth Biller from Edinburgh University to discover whyit is only by creating eclipses of distant stars, that wecould potentially find exoplanets more like our own.And as everour resident astronomer, Pete Lawrence, will be guiding usthrough what can be seen this coming month, with a particularfocus on the rewards of viewing in daylight – but as always,he will be reminding us of the need to take care when doingthis.