Items tagged with solar orbiter

ESA's Solar Orbiter spotted a snake slithering through the Sun's magnetic field recently. The sighting of the snake was a precursor to a much larger eruption. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Orbiter is billed as "the most complex scientific laboratory ever to have been sent to the Sun." The spacecraft is... Read more...
The European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Orbiter captured an unprecedented image of the Sun earlier this month. The spacecraft was about 46.6 million miles (75 million km) away, or halfway between Earth and the Sun. At the beginning of March, Solar Orbiter took several images of the burning star that lights and... Read more...
The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter is darting through space on its way to a historic close pass of the Sun. The spacecraft will pass the orbit of Mercury on its way to reaching its closest pass of the Sun, but is collecting valuable data in the meantime. On Monday the Solar Orbiter passed directly between the Earth and the... Read more...