Thread by @weatherindia

#SolarOrbiter Captures Closest Images of the Sun; Reveals Presence of Millions of 'Campfires'

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(Solar Orbiter/EUI Team (ESA & NASA); CSL, IAS, MPS, PMOD/WRC, ROB, UCL/MSSL)

By @MrigakshiDixit

#NASA and #ESA have released the first images of the Solar Orbiter, including the closest pictures ever taken of the Sun. These images were captured when the spacecraft completed its first close pass of the Sun in mid-June this year

Launched on February 10, 2020, the Solar Orbiter mission has carried several cutting-edge instruments to monitor the environment of the Earth’s closest star.

Through this mission, scientists aim to gain an in-depth understanding of the solar wind, and how it releases the stream of charged particles that influence the entire Solar System.

The first images from the mission detail the presence of millions of miniature-size solar flares—also referred to as 'campfires'—near the surface of the Sun.

#NASA describes solar flares as sudden explosions of energy caused by the tangling, crossing, or reorganising of magnetic field lines near sunspots.

The images were captured by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) on May 30, 2020, from a distance of 77 million km from the Sun.

During this time, the Solar Orbiter was at the perihelion—a point in its elliptical orbit measured to be closest to the Sun—which is roughly half the distance between the Earth and the Sun.

With the help of more Orbiter data, scientists are aiming to demystify the mysterious coronal heating phenomenon and figure out what causes the corona to be so hot—a problem considered to be among the most vexing in astrophysics.

“These unprecedented pictures of the Sun are the closest we have ever obtained,” said Holly Gilbert, NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.

(📸: : Solar Orbiter/EUI Team (ESA & NASA); CSL, IAS, MPS, PMOD/WRC, ROB, UCL/MSSL)

The EUI is programmed to take high-resolution images of the solar corona—which usually remains unexposed due to the bright light of the Sun’s surface and is, therefore, difficult to capture.

(Credits: Solar Orbiter/ PHI Team/ESA & NASA)

#SolarOrbiter