'Solar Orbiter' Delivers Closest Pictures Ever Taken of the Sun

"A European and NASA spacecraft has snapped the closest pictures ever taken of the sun," reports the Associated Press, "revealing countless little 'campfires" flaring everywhere. Scientists on Thursday released the first images taken by Solar Orbiter, launched from Cape Canaveral in February. The orbiter was about 48 million miles from the sun — about halfway between Earth and the sun — when it took the stunning high-resolution pictures last month... European Space Agency project scientist Daniel Muller described the observed multitude of "campfires" shooting into the corona, or sun's crown-like outer atmosphere, as quite possibly "the tiny cousins of the solar flares that we already know." Millions if not billions of times smaller, these tiny flares may be heating the corona, he said, long known to be hundreds of times hotter than the actual solar surface for unknown reasons... These so-called campfires, Berghmans noted, are "literally everywhere we look." Not yet well understood, they could be mini explosions, or nanoflares. More measurements are planned.

The $1.5 billion spacecraft will tilt its orbit as the mission goes on, providing unprecedented views of the sun's poles. This vantage point will allow it to capture the first pictures of the solar poles.

The website of the mission

[Mr. Dollar Ton]

at ESA (https://sci.esa.int/web/solar-orbiter/-/solar-orbiter-s-first-images-reveal-campfires-on-the-sun) have the pictures and the info without a reporter's droning track.

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[wooferhound]

This story is 10 days old and has already been featured on SlashDot twice

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[Anonymous Coward]

Great report, soldier, now back to your post and continue your observations.

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[lgw]

The claim of "closest pictures of sun," at 0.5 AU, is a bit absurd too. The Parker Solar Probe is on its 5th orbit, with the last perihelion below 0.13 AU. Perhaps it's the closest image from a dedicated solar telescope.

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[scilover]

maybe since the orbit never changes the size.

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[White Yeti]

I checked the list of experiments on Parker Solar Probe and Ulysses, and it looks like the Solar Orbiter's claim stands because those others were not designed to image the Sun's photosphere in visible wavelengths. They produce[d] tons of physical data without taking "closest pictures of the sun." C'est la vie.

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[lgw]

Well, the Parker probe has two optical telescopes. But I guess the distinction is they're designed to capture side-on views of the sun from very close up, rather than pointing directly at the sun. Here's the first picture [wikimedia.org] of the sun's corona. Not really a picture "of the sun", I guess, but certainly part of the sun.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

The first scientist to see the pic

[drewsup]

Was quoted as saying
âoeAHHHHHHHHHhhhh! My Eyes!!!!!!