The European Photo voltaic Orbiter spacecraft took the highest-resolution video ever of the higher layer of the sun’s environment, the corona.
The spacecraft, launched in 2020, took the picture sequence throughout its current shut strategy to the sun, or perihelion, on Oct. 13. The video sequence, taken with Solar Orbiter‘s Excessive Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), reveals the corona in a tranquil, virtually immobile, state. The obvious calm is sort of shocking as a result of the sun’s exercise has lately been selecting up because of the star‘s 11-year cycle of exercise.
The corona is the puzzling outermost area of the sun’s atmosphere that extends tens of millions of miles or kilometers into outer space. The corona is extraordinarily scorching, over 1.8 million levels Fahrenheit (1 million levels Celsius), a lot hotter than the sun’s floor, which has solely about 10,000 F (6,000 C). This area is the supply of coronal mass ejections, bursts of magnetized plasma that may intrude with Earth’s magnetic field and set off geomagnetic storms, inflicting auroras, energy blackouts and satellite glitches.
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Photo voltaic Orbiter took the video sequence when it was 27 million miles (43 million km) from the sun’s floor, about 29% of the Earth-sun distance, which is nearer than the orbit of the solar system‘s innermost planet, Mercury.
Every pixel within the video covers an space 65 miles large (105 km), which signifies that 17 Earths would match throughout the picture, in keeping with a statement (opens in new tab) from the European House Company (ESA), which manages the mission.
The arches of vivid plasma seen within the sequence are held in place by highly effective magnetic loops that emanate from the sun’s inside, ESA added.
Photo voltaic Orbiter is one among two spacecraft at the moment exploring the sun up shut. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe makes deeper dives towards the star’s floor, however Photo voltaic Orbiter takes pictures from a more in-depth viewpoint than any spacecraft earlier than. The atmosphere within the area the place Parker Photo voltaic Probe travels, just a few million miles above the sun’s floor, is simply too scorching for an imaging instrument to outlive.
Collectively, the 2 spacecraft are serving to scientists perceive the sun’s conduct. Though the sun is our closest star, there’s nonetheless so much about it that puzzles scientists, like why the corona is so scorching nor how precisely the sun’s 11-year exercise cycle works.
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