Solar Orbiter: First close-up images of the solar corona
The solar probe Solar Orbiter has come particularly close to the sun. The images of its flyby show new details of the corona, including a curious structure.
ESA's Solar Orbiter probe has delivered the first images from its closest flyby of the sun at the end of March. The images show the star's hot atmosphere, the solar corona, in particular detail, report the European Space Agency and the Max Planck Institute for Solar Research (MPS) in Göttingen.
The researchers analyzed data from no less than three measuring instruments, the Metis coronograph, the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) and the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI). The instruments each image a specific area of the sun: The coronograph visualizes the outer layer of the corona by occulting the solar disk. The SPICE instrument analyzes the presence of particles in the corona based on the light emanating from it. The EUI films the Sun in extremely short-wavelength ultraviolet light. The images show, among other things, a mysterious structure 25,000 kilometers in diameter from which plasma flows depart in spiky shapes in all directions. This is why it has been christened "the hedgehog". How the solar hedgehog was formed and what is going on inside it will be investigated next. So far, only part of the data recorded in March has reached Earth, because the probe is currently far away.
The solar probe had taken the images on March 26, when it had come particularly close to the sun - 48 million kilometers lay between them. The distance between Earth and the Sun is more than three times that. In October 2022, the Solar Orbiter is expected to come within 42 million kilometers of the sun. Ideally, it should continue to explore the star until 2030.
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Originalartikel auf Spektrum.deTitelbild: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/EUI Team Ausschnitt
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