Stunning new Solar Orbiter images capture explosive activity on the sun
A new series of images from the Solar Orbiter spacecraft is giving scientists the clearest view yet of the sun's volatile lower atmosphere-and unlocking critical insights into the forces behind solar eruptions and space weather.
On March 9, 2025, while nearly 48 million miles from the sun, the Solar Orbiter spacecraft was oriented to capture a sweeping view of the solar surface, the European Space Agency noted. Using a 5x5 grid, its Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) took six high-resolution images and two wide-angle views at each position. The result was a massive mosaic of 200 images, stitched together to create the widest high-resolution image of the Sun ever captured.
"What you see is the Sun's million-degree hot atmosphere, called the corona, as it looks in ultraviolet light," the ESA explained.
Astronomers say these images reveal the "middle zone" of the sun, between its stable surface and its erupting outer corona, where magnetic fields twist and plasma eruptions begin.
The visible surface of the sun, called the photosphere, is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Space.com. Strangely, the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere-the corona-is much hotter, regularly reaching between 1.8 million and 3.6 million degrees. In some cases, it can spike as high as 72 million degrees, according to NASA.
This superheated outer layer is made of plasma, a hot, electrically charged gas. It's also where powerful solar events like flares and eruptions begin. Scientists hope the data will eventually help explain why the sun's outer atmosphere is millions of degrees hotter than its surface-one of solar physics' biggest mysteries.
The images come just as Solar Orbiter enters its closest pass of the sun to date. Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA. A team from University College London is using the data to better understand how solar storms develop. Understanding solar storms is key for improving space weather forecasting on Earth. The same activity that lights up the aurora can also interfere with satellites, GPS systems and power grids.
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