Latest news with #PolarimetricandHelioseismicImager
Engadget
a day ago
- Science
- Engadget
Solar Orbiter captures images of the sun's pole for the first time
The Solar Orbiter has been observing the sun since 2021, but it recently went on a side trip to Venus which significantly tilted its orbit and gave it a good view of the sun's polar region. That is how it was able to capture images that will historically be known as humankind's first-ever views of the sun's pole. All our galaxy's planets and the other spacecraft we've deployed orbit the sun around an imaginary ecliptic plane along the star's equator. But thanks to the Solar Orbiter's Venus flyby, it now has a view of the sun from below its equator, allowing it to see the star's southern pole clearly. The images you see above were captured from an angle of 15 degrees below the equator on March 16 and 17, but the probe has reached the 17 degree maximum angle it could achieve since then. To view this content, you'll need to update your privacy settings. Please click here and view the "Content and social-media partners" setting to do so. Three of the probe's instruments were responsible for the images. The Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) imaged the sun in visible light and mapped its surface magnetic field. Meanwhile, the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) imaged the sun in ultraviolet light, and the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument captured light "coming from different temperatures of charged gas above the sun's surface, thereby revealing different layers of the sun's atmosphere." So what exactly was the Solar Orbiter able to observe at the sun's southern pole? Well, the pole's magnetic field, simply put, is a mess at the moment. See, the sun's magnetic field flips roughly every 11 years, and it's about to flip this year if it hasn't yet. Normally, a magnet has a clear north and south pole, but the orbiter's PHI instrument showed that both north and south polarity magnetic fields are present at the sun's south pole right now. "This happens only for a short time during each solar cycle, at solar maximum, when the Sun's magnetic field flips and is at its most active," ESA explained. After the flip, the magnetic field fixes itself so that the poles have single polarities. The process is gradual, however, and it will take five to six years to achieve solar minimum, wherein which the sun's magnetic field is at its most orderly. These solar cycles or regular magnetic field flips aren't fully understood yet, and the orbiter's observations could be the key to unlocking that knowledge. In addition, scientists used the orbiter's SPICE instrument to take Doppler measurements, or how fast clumps of solar material are moving. They then took that information to create a velocity map that shows how solar material moves within a specific layer of the sun. These measurements can show how the sun flings out particles into space in the form of solar winds, which is one of the orbiter's key goals.
India Today
a day ago
- Science
- India Today
Europe's Solar Orbiter clicks world's first picture of Sun's poles
The robotic Solar Orbiter spacecraft has obtained the first images ever taken of our sun's two poles as scientists seek a deeper understanding of Earth's host star, including its magnetic field, its 11-year cycle of activity and the solar European Space Agency on Wednesday released images taken in March using three of Solar Orbiter's onboard show the sun's south pole from a distance of roughly 40 million miles (65 million km), obtained at a period of maximum solar activity. Images of the north pole are still being transmitted by the spacecraft back to Orbiter, developed by ESA in collaboration with the U.S. space agency NASA, was launched in 2020 from Until now, all the views of the sun have come from the same vantage point - looking face-on toward its equator from the plane on which Earth and most of the solar system's other planets orbit, called the ecliptic Orbiter used a slingshot flyby around Venus in February to get out of this plane to view the sun from up to 17 degrees below the solar equator. Future slingshot flybys will provide an even better view, at beyond 30 degrees. This image shows Solar Orbiter's view of the Sun's south pole on 23 March 2025. (Photo: ESA) "The best is still to come. What we have seen is just a first quick peek," said solar physicist Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, who heads the scientific team for the spacecraft's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager spacecraft observed both poles, first the south pole, then the north pole," Solanki said. "The north pole's data will arrive in the coming weeks or months."Solar Orbiter is gathering data on phenomena including the sun's magnetic field, its activity cycle, and the solar wind, a relentless high-speed flow of charged particles emanating from the sun's outermost atmospheric layer that fills interplanetary space."We are not sure what we will find, and it is likely we will see things that we didn't know about before," said solar physicist Hamish Reid of University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UK co-principal investigator of Solar Orbiter's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager sun is a ball of hot electrically charged gas that, as it moves, generates a powerful magnetic field, which flips from south to north and back again every 11 years in what is called the solar magnetic field drives the formation of sunspots, cooler regions on the solar surface that appear as dark blotches. At the cycle's beginning, the sun has fewer sunspots. Their number increases as the cycle progresses, before starting all over again."What we have been missing to really understand this (solar cycle) is what is actually happening at the top and bottom of the sun," Reid The sun's diameter is about 865,000 miles (1.4 million km), more than 100 times wider than Earth."Whilst the Earth has a clear north and south pole, the Solar Orbiter measurements show both north and south polarity magnetic fields are currently present at the south pole of the sun. This happens during the maximum in activity of the solar cycle, when the sun's magnetic field is about to flip. In the coming years, the sun will reach solar minimum, and we expect to see a more orderly magnetic field around the poles of the sun," Reid said."We see in the images and movies of the polar regions that the sun's magnetic field is chaotic at the poles at the (current) phase of the solar cycle - high solar activity, cycle maximum," Solanki sun is located about 93 million miles (149 million km) from our planet."The data that Solar Orbiter obtains during the coming years will help modelers in predicting the solar cycle. This is important for us on Earth because the sun's activity causes solar flares and coronal mass ejections which can result in radio communicationblackouts, destabilize our power grids, but also drive the sensational auroras," Reid Orbiter's new vantage point out of the ecliptic will also allow us to get a better picture of how the solar wind expands to form the heliosphere, a vast bubble around the sun and its planets," Reid added.A previous spacecraft, Ulysses, flew over the solar poles in the 1990s."Ulysses, however, was blind in the sense that it did not carry any optical instruments - telescopes or cameras - and hence could only sense the solar wind passing the spacecraft directly, but could not image the sun," Solanki Watch
Ammon
a day ago
- Science
- Ammon
Solar Orbiter spacecraft obtains first images of the sun's poles
Ammon News - The robotic Solar Orbiter spacecraft has obtained the first images ever taken of our sun's two poles as scientists seek a deeper understanding of Earth's host star, including its magnetic field, its 11-year cycle of activity and the solar wind. The European Space Agency on Wednesday released images taken in March using three of Solar Orbiter's onboard instruments. They show the sun's south pole from a distance of roughly 40 million miles (65 million km), obtained at a period of maximum solar activity. Images of the north pole are still being transmitted by the spacecraft back to Earth. Solar Orbiter, developed by ESA in collaboration with the U.S. space agency NASA, was launched in 2020 from Florida. Until now, all the views of the sun have come from the same vantage point - looking face-on toward its equator from the plane on which Earth and most of the solar system's other planets orbit, called the ecliptic plane. Solar Orbiter used a slingshot flyby around Venus in February to get out of this plane to view the sun from up to 17 degrees below the solar equator. Future slingshot flybys will provide an even better view, at beyond 30 degrees. "The best is still to come. What we have seen is just a first quick peek," said solar physicist Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, who heads the scientific team for the spacecraft's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager instrument. Reuters
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
World's first images of the sun's south pole spark 'a new era of solar science'
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Just this once, it's OK to stare at the sun — provided you're looking at the European Space Agency's (ESA) newly released, history-making images of the solar south pole. Taken near the sun on March 23 and revealed to Earthlings Wednesday (June 11), the new images from ESA's Solar Orbiter show a view of our star that no human or spacecraft has ever recorded before. While Earth and the other planets orbit relatively in line with the sun's equator on an invisible plane called the ecliptic, Solar Orbiter spent the last several months tilting its orbit to 17 degrees below the solar equator — bringing our star's enigmatic south pole into view for the first time ever. "Today we reveal humankind's first-ever views of the Sun's pole," Carole Mundell, ESA's director of science, said in a statement. "These new unique views from our Solar Orbiter mission are the beginning of a new era of solar science." The new images capture the solar pole in a broad swath of visible and ultraviolet wavelengths, using three of Solar Orbiter's 10 onboard instruments. The result is a colorful confetti of solar data, including an unprecedented look at the perplexing tangles of the sun's magnetic field as it prepares to flip, and the high-velocity movements of specific chemical elements as they ride plumes of plasma that make up the solar wind — the constant stream of charged particles that governs space weather throughout our solar system. These data will help improve our understanding of the solar wind, space weather and the sun's roughly 11-year activity cycle for years to come, according to ESA. But of particular interest right now, as the sun spits out flares in overdrive during its period of peak activity (called solar maximum), are the magnetic measurements taken with Solar Orbiter's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) instrument. Related: NASA spacecraft snaps eerie image of eclipsed sun with an extra moon overhead. What's going on? PHI's maps of the solar magnetic field highlight an intriguing paradox: While most magnets have a distinct north and south pole, the sun's south pole is roiling with both north and south polarity magnetic fields (shown as blue and red patches in the corresponding images). According to ESA, this mess of magnetism is a temporary phenomenon that hints that the sun's magnetic field is about to flip, as it does once every 11 years or so. This magnetic reversal signifies the end of the high-activity solar maximum and begins a transition toward the relative calm of the next solar minimum. When the next minimum begins, approximately five to six years from now, the sun's poles should show only one type of magnetic polarity apiece as our star takes a break from launching violent space weather tantrums. RELATED STORIES —A mysterious, 100-year solar cycle may have just restarted — and it could mean decades of dangerous space weather —NASA's Parker Solar Probe spots powerful magnetic explosion aimed at the sun's surface —Ancient superpowered solar storm that hit Earth 14,000 years ago is the 'biggest ever identified' Solar Orbiter will have several more chances to test these predictions over the coming years. With a little help from the gravitational pull of Venus, Solar Orbiter will continue tilting its orbit further from the solar equator, reaching a tilt of 24 degrees in December 2026 and a whopping 33 degrees in June 2029. These ever-more-angular vantage points will expose the solar poles in even greater detail, improving our knowledge of our home star with every flyby. "This is just the first step of Solar Orbiter's 'stairway to heaven'," Daniel Müller, ESA's Solar Orbiter project scientist, said in the statement. "These data will transform our understanding of the Sun's magnetic field, the solar wind, and solar activity."
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Humanity Has Just Glimpsed Part of The Sun We've Never Seen Before
It might look like a regular patch of Sun, but what you are looking at in the image above is a sight humanity has never seen before. It's actually the Sun's south pole, and our first-ever glimpse of this region comes courtesy of a daredevil maneuver by Solar Orbiter, which plunged below the plane of the Solar System to catch an oblique glimpse of a part of the Sun usually hidden from view. "Today we reveal humankind's first-ever views of the Sun's pole," says astrophysicist Carole Mundell, director of science of the European Space Agency (ESA). "The Sun is our nearest star, giver of life, and potential disruptor of modern space and ground power systems, so it is imperative that we understand how it works and learn to predict its behavior. These new unique views from our Solar Orbiter mission are the beginning of a new era of solar science." The poles of the Sun have long been a white whale for solar physics. Like the other planets in the Solar System, Earth orbits more or less around the Sun's equator. So, too, has most of our solar instruments. This means that we've never had a clear view of the top and bottom of our star. It's a problem for many reasons, not least of which is that, every 11 years, those poles flip, and north and south polarity reverses. We don't have a good handle on why this process happens. A good, clear view of the poles would give a lot of new information that scientists could use to help figure it out. Solar Orbiter has just made the best effort yet to obtain that clear view. It's the perfect timing for this observation, too: the Sun is emerging from solar maximum, the period during which that polar flip takes place. In February 2025, the spacecraft, usually zipping around the Sun's middle, tilted its orbit by 17 degrees – enough to finally see the pole. Previous orbiters had only ever tilted their orbits as far as 7 degrees, with the exception of the Ulysses orbiter that, alas, carried no imaging equipment as it made three exciting loops directly over the Sun's poles between 1994 and 2008. "We didn't know what exactly to expect from these first observations," says astrophysicist Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System research in Germany. "The Sun's poles are literally terra incognita." Three imaging instruments took detailed readings of the solar south pole over the days' worth of observations: The Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) probed the magnetic fields of the Sun as manifested by the polarization of its light; the Extreme-Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) took observations in the specified wavelengths to capture fine structures in the solar atmosphere; and the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument captures observations in ultraviolet and extreme ultraviolet to probe the temperature and composition of the solar corona. The magnetic field at the south pole was a bit of a fascinating mess during Solar Orbiter's observation period, with a mixture of both north and south polarities. As the polar flip settles down, one polarity will strengthen and the other wane, all the way to solar minimum, when the magnetic field will be at its most orderly before starting to fray again. Meanwhile, SPICE tracked the motion of carbon ions in the region of the solar corona known as the transition region, where the temperature rapidly spikes by thousands of degrees. The radiance map reveals how the ions are distributed, while the doppler map shows how fast the ions were moving away from or towards Solar Orbiter at the time of observation. How particles move around in the solar atmosphere is crucial to understanding the solar wind – the constant stream of charged particles that blows from the Sun out into the Solar System. In just a short time, the spacecraft captured enough data to keep solar scientists busy for years to come. That data, however, is just the beginning. Solar Orbiter is going to continue orbiting the Sun at a 17-degree tilt until December 2026, when it will kick things up a notch to 24 degrees. It will then ramp up to 33 degrees in June 2029. "This is just the first step of Solar Orbiter's 'stairway to heaven'," says ESA astronomer Daniel Müller. "In the coming years, the spacecraft will climb further out of the ecliptic plane for ever better views of the Sun's polar regions. These data will transform our understanding of the Sun's magnetic field, the solar wind, and solar activity." 'City-Killer' Asteroid Even More Likely to Hit The Moon in 2032 The Center of Our Universe Does Not Exist. A Physicist Explains Why. Stunning Direct Images of Alien Worlds Are Detailed Enough to Reveal Clouds
