Paris, France – The European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter has captured stunning close-up views of the Sun, revealing its dynamic magnetic structures and extreme temperatures. Collaborating with NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, the Solar Orbiter’s mission is to study the Sun up close and from high latitudes, providing the first images of the Sun’s poles and investigating the heliosphere.
The Solar Orbiter filmed the transition from the Sun’s lower atmosphere to the much hotter outer corona, showcasing the ever-changing landscape of the Sun up close. The images show hair-like structures made of charged gas (plasma), following magnetic field lines emerging from the Sun’s interior.
On September 27, 2023, the Solar Orbiter’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager recorded the video at roughly a third of the Earth’s distance from the Sun, with a closest approach of 27 million miles (43 million km) on October 7, 2023. Around the same time, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe approached to within 4.51 million miles (7.26 million kilometers) from the solar surface, studying particles and the magnetic field in the Sun’s corona and solar wind.
The collaboration between the Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe allowed for remote-sensing instruments to observe the source region of the solar wind, providing valuable insights into solar phenomena. Features such as coronal ‘moss’, spicules reaching up from the Sun’s chromosphere, small eruptions, and ‘cool’ coronal rain were visible in the images captured by the Solar Orbiter.
These images offer a rare glimpse into the Sun’s intricate and fascinating features, shedding light on the complex processes that govern our solar system. The data collected by these spacecraft will contribute to a better understanding of the Sun’s behavior and its influence on Earth and the larger solar environment. The successful collaboration between ESA and NASA exemplifies the power of international cooperation in space exploration and scientific discovery.