The first images of an artificial solar eclipse from ESA's Proba-3 mission have been unveiled. Total solar eclipses are rare, but exactly how rare is now up for debate after the European Space Agency debuted the first images today (June 16) from two new satellites that together operate as an "eclipse machine."

More specifically, with the Moon blotting out the main disk of the Sun, we can see details and features in the solar atmosphere, or corona, that are usually obscured from view. Now, a new satellite observatory has given us a way to watch an eclipse every single day.

A pair of European satellites have created the first artificial solar eclipses through precise and fancy formation flying