Latest news with #SamiSolanki
India Today
9 hours 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
9 hours 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
The Independent
19 hours ago
- Science
- The Independent
Solar Orbiter offers first glimpse of sun's poles in breakthrough mission
The first-ever images of the sun 's south pole have been captured by the robotic Solar Orbiter spacecraft. The European Space Agency (ESA) released images on Wednesday using three of Solar Orbiter's onboard instruments. The images, taken in March, show the sun's south pole from a distance of roughly 40 million miles, 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 US 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. But in February, Solar Orbiter used a gravity-assist flyby around Venus to tilt its trajectory, enabling a view of the sun from about 17 degrees below the equator. Future Venus flybys will increase that angle to more than 30 degrees, allowing for even better polar observations. "The best is still to come. What we have seen is just a first quick peek," said solar physicist Sami Solanki from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, who leads the science team behind the spacecraft's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager. Mr Solanki explained that "the spacecraft observed both poles, first the south pole, then the north pole'. He added: "The north pole's data will arrive in the coming weeks or months." Solar Orbiter is currently collecting information on several solar phenomena, including the sun's magnetic field, its activity cycle, and the solar wind – a constant, high-speed stream of charged particles that flows outward from the sun's outer atmosphere and fills the solar system. "We are not sure what we will find, and it is likely we will see things that we didn't know about before," solar physicist Hamish Reid of UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory said. The 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 cycle. The 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," Mr Reid said. The sun's diameter is about 865,000 miles – 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," Mr 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," Mr Solanki said. The sun is located about 93 million miles from our planet. "The data that Solar Orbiter obtains during the coming years will help modellers 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 communication blackouts, destabilize our power grids, but also drive the sensational auroras," Mr Reid said. "Solar 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," he 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," Mr Solanki said.
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Sun's south pole revealed for first time, in images from Solar Orbiter spacecraft
The sun's uncharted south pole has been revealed for the first time in striking images beamed back from the Solar Orbiter spacecraft. The joint European Space Agency (ESA) and Nasa mission swooped below the planetary plane and, for the first time, captured the sun's mysterious polar regions. The groundbreaking observations also mapped a chaotic patchwork of magnetic activity at the sun's pole that scientists say is key to understanding how the sun's field flips roughly every 11 years. 'Today we reveal humankind's first-ever views of the sun's pole,' said Prof Carole Mundell, the ESA's director of science. '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 behaviour. These new unique views from our Solar Orbiter mission are the beginning of a new era of solar science.' The $1.3bn (£1.1bn) mission, which launched in 2020, shows the sun's south pole as recorded mid-March, when the craft had dipped to an angle of 15° below the solar equator to perform the mission's first high-angle observations. While the Earth – like a bar magnet – has a clear north and south, the sun's magnetism flips roughly every 11 years. The sun is currently at a solar maximum, the period when it builds up to a polarity flip, in which the south pole will become magnetic north and when sun spots and solar flares are most active. Solar Orbiter's first magnetic field measurements reveal a fragmented mosaic of both north and south polarity at the base of the sun. This patchwork of north and south had been predicted in computer models, but had never been confirmed in observations. Scientists say that tracking the dramatic changes in the sun's polar magnetic fields will be crucial to improving forecasting of the solar cycle. 'We didn't know what exactly to expect from these first observations – the sun's poles are literally terra incognita,' said Prof Sami Solanki, who leads the instrument mapping the magnetic field and is director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) in Germany. The sun's magnetic cycle occurs because it does not rotate as a solid object, with its equator spinning faster (every 26 days) than its poles (33 days). This stretches and twists magnetic field lines around the sun until they become so unstable that north and south eventually flip. Prof Lucie Green, of UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, who has worked on the mission since 2005, said: 'Everything in the atmosphere of the sun and whole character of the sun is generated by its magnetic field and how that changes over time. It goes from being a fairly quiet star to being a really active and dynamic star with explosions in the atmosphere. Although the models predicted that the field should be mixed up, it's something else to actually see it.' In five or six years, the sun will reach its next solar minimum, during which its magnetic field is at its most orderly and the sun has the lowest levels of activity. Current models and predictions of the 11-year solar cycle fall short of being able to predict exactly when and how powerfully the sun will reach its most active state. The only previous mission to have flown above the sun's poles was Nasa's Ulysses probe, launched in 1990, but while it took measurements of the sun's magnetic field and solar wind, it did not have a camera. Solar Orbiter will continue to orbit around the Sun at a 17° tilt angle until 24 December 2026, when its next flight past Venus will tilt its orbit to 24° and in 2029, the spacecraft will rise to an angle of 33° above the planetary plane.
Yahoo
20 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
European probe snaps first images of the sun's south pole
The first-ever images of the sun's south pole reveal a messy jumble of magnetic activity in a never-before-seen region of our nearest star. The images, taken by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft and released Wednesday by the European Space Agency, offer fresh insights into the sun's behavior, its magnetic field and how it produces space weather. '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 behaviour,' Carole Mundell, director of science at the European Space Agency (ESA), said in a statement. 'These new unique views from our Solar Orbiter mission are the beginning of a new era of solar science.' The images have already been a boon for heliophysicists, showing turbulent magnetic activity at the south pole as the sun ramps up to the most active phase of its natural cycle. The solar cycle typically spans about 11 years, with the sun going from a quiet period of low magnetic activity to a highly active phase characterized by intense solar flares and solar storms. As the sun reaches peak activity — a phase known as the solar maximum — its magnetic poles flip, meaning the sun's south pole becomes magnetic north. Why exactly that happens is unclear, as are precise forecasts for when it will occur. Solar Orbiter may be able to tease out some of these answers. From the spacecraft's observations, scientists discovered that magnetic fields with both north and south polarity are currently present at the sun's south pole. This mishmash of magnetism is expected to last only a short time during the solar maximum before the magnetic field flips. Once that happens, a single polarity should slowly build up over time at the poles as the sun heads toward its quiet solar minimum phase, according to ESA. 'How exactly this build-up occurs is still not fully understood, so Solar Orbiter has reached high latitudes at just the right time to follow the whole process from its unique and advantageous perspective,' said Sami Solanki, director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany and lead scientist for Solar Orbiter's PHI instrument, which is mapping the sun's surface magnetic field. Scientists have enjoyed close-up images of the sun before, but before now, they have all been captured from around the sun's equator by spacecraft and observatories orbiting along a plane similar to Earth's path around the sun. But Solar Orbiter's journey through the cosmos included close flybys of Venus that helped tilt the spacecraft's orbit, allowing it to see higher-than-normal latitudes on the sun. The newly released images were taken in late March, when Solar Orbiter was 15 degrees below the sun's equator, and then a few days later when it was 17 degrees below the equator — a high-enough angle for the probe to directly see the sun's south pole. 'We didn't know what exactly to expect from these first observations — the sun's poles are literally terra incognita,' Solanki said in a statement. Solar Orbiter was launched in February 2020. The European-led mission is being operated jointly with NASA. In the coming years, Solar Orbiter's path is expected to tilt even further, bringing even more of the sun's south pole into direct view. As such, the best views may be yet to come, according to ESA. 'These data will transform our understanding of the sun's magnetic field, the solar wind, and solar activity,' said Daniel Müller, ESA's Solar Orbiter project scientist. This article was originally published on
