Why is it in the News?

The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter has captured the most detailed image of the Sun's full disc and outer atmosphere, the corona, to date.

What is the Solar Orbiter?

• Solar Orbiter is a Sun-observing satellite, equipped with 10 state-of-the-art science instruments, that aims to provide unprecedented insights into the workings of the Sun.
• It intends to conduct an in-depth study of both the Sun and the inner heliosphere, exploring the uncharted regions closest to our Solar System.
• A collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, it represents the most intricate scientific laboratory ever dispatched to study the Sun.
• Distinguished by its capability to capture images of the Sun from a closer vantage point than any preceding spacecraft, it also marks the first exploration of the Sun's previously uncharted polar regions.
• Launched on February 10, 2020, the mission unveiled its initial images in June of the same year.
• Following gravitational assist manoeuvres at Earth and Venus, it commenced full science operations in December 2021.
• Solar Orbiter actively orbits the Sun in an elliptical trajectory, with its closest point, the perihelion, located approximately 25 million miles (40 million kilometres) from the Sun—closer than the orbit of Mercury.
• In terms of instrumentation, it actively carries six remote-sensing instruments for observing the Sun and the solar corona, along with four in-situ instruments for measuring the solar wind, energetic particles, and electromagnetic fields.
• The mission actively aims to continue its scientific operations until at least 2027.