Browsing: Solar Orbiter

The Solar Orbiter is a space mission collaboratively developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, launched in February 2020 with the purpose of studying the Sun. It is designed to get closer to the Sun than the orbit of Mercury, providing unprecedented observations of the Sun’s surface and its outer atmosphere, the corona. The Solar Orbiter carries a suite of ten scientific instruments, which enable it to capture high-resolution images and gather data on the Sun’s magnetic fields, solar wind, and solar flares. One of its key objectives is to explore the Sun’s polar regions, which have been relatively unexamined but are crucial for understanding the Sun’s magnetic field and its effect on space weather. The data collected by the Solar Orbiter will help scientists better understand the Sun’s dynamics and its impact on the heliosphere, thereby improving our ability to forecast space weather events that can affect satellites and terrestrial technologies.