![]() In time, Solar Orbiter will reach within 42 million kilometers (26 million miles) of the Sun, covering almost a full quarter of the distance between the star and our planet. 'We have never been able to measure the magnetic field at the back of the Sun.' 'That is a first,' said PHI principal investigator Sami Solanki. The latter instrument has also provided scientists with another 'first,' having revealed a single active region on the Sun that is experiencing bursts of energetic particles that, until now, experts were unaware existed. ![]() ![]() The EUI is only one of the imagers on Solar Orbiter it is joined by the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) used to capture high-resolution measurements of the Sun's magnetic field lines. The Sun might look quiet at the first glance, but when we look in detail, we can see those miniature flares everywhere we look. The campfires are little relatives of the solar flares that we can observe from Earth, million or billion times smaller. Talking about the newly discovered phenomena is EUI instrument principal investigator David Berghmans, who said: It's unknown at this time whether campfires are entirely different than big flares or simply miniature versions of them. Solar Orbiter used its Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument to capture the images - it includes an imager capable of capturing the entire Sun, plus two high-resolution telescopes. Kicking things off are the 'campfires' featured in the first set of images above. The mission includes half a dozen remote-sensing telescopes and four in situ monitoring instruments for studying the environment around Solar Orbiter.ĭata gathered by both sets of instruments will, hopefully, provide scientists with new insights about the star and solar wind. ![]() Solar Orbiter was launched in February 2020 with the goal of, among other things, capturing images of the Sun at the closest distance thus far attainable. Despite this early stage, the mission has already revealed new phenomena, underscoring the promising results the space agencies anticipate from their joint spacecraft. The images have revealed a new mystery that scientists have named 'campfires' - this refers to miniature solar flares on the Sun described by ESA as 'omnipresent.'ĮSA says the early technical verification phase of the mission knowtn as commissioning has been completed, meaning Solar Orbiter is just getting started. NASA and the ESA revealed the first images of the Sun from its Solar Orbiter joint mission, providing an unprecedented look at our star. ![]()
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