In the precise alignment, the 1.4-m large disc on the Occulter spacecraft – the external occulter – will fully cover the Sun. Even then, however, so-called ‘stray light’ will spill over the occulter’s edges, creating a haze that would interfere with the corona observations.

To block the stray light, the coronagraph is equipped with another, internal occulter. In the star field image, this internal occulter is visible as a black ring, corresponding to a blackened section of one of the coronagraph’s lenses.

Andrei adds: “You can also see cosmic rays in the image, marked in purple. This is normal – in coronagraph images, cosmic ray hits often look like stars. There was a second image taken some time apart – in this one, the stars stay, and the cosmic rays appear in different locations.