![]() ![]() Data taken by PHI and EUI during their commissioning in 20 show that often closely adjacent regions of different magnetic polarity on the solar surface are the origin of this phenomenon. ![]() The visible solar surface is much "cooler" at about 6000 degrees. The phenomenon occurs more frequently than previously thought and could help to explain how the puzzlingly high temperatures of about one million degrees in the solar corona are generated. There, EUI's telescopes have in recent months been able to detect tiny bursts of radiation known as "campfires". For example, the instrument PHI (Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager), which was developed and built under the lead of the MPS, observes the magnetic fields and flow velocities at the solar surface EUI (Extreme-Ultraviolet Imager), SPICE (Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment) and the coronagraph Metis, to which the MPS contributed, provide information from the hot solar corona. The ten scientific instruments not only analyze the electromagnetic fields and solar particles that flow around the spacecraft, but for the first time can look at the Sun itself from a great proximity. "Unlike its predecessors, Solar Orbiter is equipped with unusually comprehensive instrumentation," explains MPS Director Prof. Only NASA's Parker Solar Probe has flown closer to the Sun, reaching a distance of just 8.5 million kilometers last year. This is only a few million kilometers more than the distance reached by the twin probes Helios A and B in the 1970s. From the end of March, Solar Orbiter will join this exclusive group: On Saturday, March 26, the spacecraft will fly past the Sun at a distance of about 48 million kilometers. Only few space probes have so far ventured within less than a third of this distance from our central star. The Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany has contributed to four of the mission’s ten scientific instruments.Īn enormous span of 150 million kilometers lie between Earth and Sun. The scientists involved hope that among other things this will provide new insights into how the smallest bursts of radiation in the corona arise from the magnetic fields of the visible solar surface. Solar Orbiter will be able to exploit one of its key advantages: the simultaneous view into different layers of the Sun. In the days around the so-called perihelion passage, the space probe is expected to record its most valuable data to date the images of the hot solar corona will have the highest resolution of all times. That is less than a third of the distance between Earth and Sun. Next Saturday, March 26, only about 48 million kilometers will separate the probe from the Sun. Solar Orbiter Solar physics Sun and HeliosphereĪfter two years in space, ESA's spacecraft Solar Orbiter, to which NASA is also contributing, is heading for the best vantage point of its flight path so far.
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