New Delhi: The European Space Agency has just released spectacular images and videos of the Sun which show a solar 'hedgehog' and the star's poles. The breathtaking pictures were captured by ESA's Solar Orbiter, which recently made its first close approach to the Sun. The ESA-led mission is providing the most extraordinary insights into the Sun's magnetic behaviour and how it affects space weather.
Solar Orbiter, the most complex scientific laboratory ever to have been sent to the Sun, was launched in February 2020, and released the first images captured by it in July 2020. The space mission is an international collaboration between ESA and NASA.
The laboratory's milestones include capturing the closest ever images of the Sun, the first ever close-up images of the Sun's polar regions, measuring the composition of the solar wind, and linking it to its area of origin on the solar surface.
All About The Spectacular Imagery And Movies
On March 26, Solar Orbiter made its closest approach to the Sun, known as perihelion, at a distance of 42 million kilometres. The laboratory was inside the orbit of Mercury, at about one-third the distance between the Sun and Earth, and its heat shield reached a temperature of around 500 degrees Celsius, the ESA said on its website. But the heat did not damage the spacecraft, for its innovative technology allowed it to dissipate the heat, and to keep functioning.
The spectacular imagery and detailed new movies returned by Solar Orbiter show activity in the solar atmosphere and reveal a variety of features. Scientists have named a feature with spikes of hot gas reaching out in all directions 'the hedgehog'. The eye-catching feature stretches 25,000 kilometres across the Sun.
How Is Solar Orbiter Helping Us Better Understand The Sun?
Solar Orbiter carries ten science instruments, nine of which are led by ESA Member States, and one by NASA, and all are working together in close collaboration to provide spectacular insight into Earth's host star 'works'. The remote-sensing instruments look at the Sun, while the in-situ instruments monitor the conditions around the laboratory. This enables scientists to 'join the dots' from what they see happening at the Sun, to what the spacecraft 'feels' at its location in the solar wind millions of kilometres away, the ESA said on its website.
When the Solar Orbiter reaches the perihelion, the closer the spacecraft gets to the Sun, the finer the details the remote sensing instrument can observe. Solar Orbiter also soaked up several solar flares, and a coronal mass ejection directed toward Earth, giving the laboratory a taste of real-time space weather forecasting. The endeavour is becoming increasingly important because of the threat space weather poses to technology and astronauts.
Scientists are trying to interpret the information the spacecraft is returning in order to transform our understanding of the Sun.