{"id":11917,"date":"2020-07-16T17:49:09","date_gmt":"2020-07-16T17:49:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/?p=11917"},"modified":"2020-07-16T18:01:37","modified_gmt":"2020-07-16T18:01:37","slug":"esa-nasas-solar-orbiter-returns-first-data-snaps-closest-pictures-of-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/esa-nasas-solar-orbiter-returns-first-data-snaps-closest-pictures-of-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"ESA\/NASA&#8217;s Solar Orbiter Returns First Data, Snaps Closest Pictures of the Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Article By Miles Hatfield NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"ESA\/NASA&#039;s Solar Orbiter Returns First Data, Snaps Closest Pictures of the Sun\" width=\"788\" height=\"443\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/q-Ra9p9WVbs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The first images from ESA\/NASA\u2019s\u00a0Solar Orbiter are now available to the public, including the closest pictures ever taken of the Sun.<\/p>\n<p>Solar Orbiter is an international\u00a0collaboration between the European Space Agency, or ESA, and NASA, to study our closest star, the Sun. Launched on Feb. 9, 2020 (EST), the spacecraft completed its first close pass of the Sun in mid-June.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese unprecedented pictures of the Sun are the closest we have ever obtained,\u201d said Holly Gilbert, NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA&#8217;s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. \u201cThese amazing images will help scientists piece together the Sun\u2019s atmospheric layers, which is important for understanding how it drives space weather near the Earth and throughout the solar system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe didn\u2019t expect such great results so early,\u201d said Daniel M\u00fcller, ESA\u2019s Solar Orbiter project scientist. \u201cThese images show that Solar Orbiter is off to an excellent start.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11918\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11918\" style=\"width: 702px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/solar_orbiter-eui_0.gif\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-11918 size-large\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/solar_orbiter-eui_0.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"702\" height=\"702\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11918\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This animation shows a series of views of the Sun captured with the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) on ESA\/NASA&#8217;s Solar Orbiter on May 30, 2020. They show the Sun\u2019s appearance at a wavelength of 17 nanometers, which is in the extreme ultraviolet region of the electromagnetic spectrum. Images at this wavelength reveal the upper atmosphere of the Sun, the corona, with a temperature of more than a million degrees. Credits: Solar Orbiter\/EUI Team (ESA &amp; NASA); CSL, IAS, MPS, PMOD\/WRC, ROB, UCL\/MSSL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Getting to this point was no simple feat. The novel coronavirus forced mission control at the European Space Operations Center, or ESOC, in Darmstadt, Germany to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Science_Exploration\/Space_Science\/ESA_scales_down_science_mission_operations_amid_pandemic\">close down completely<\/a>\u00a0for more than a week. During commissioning, the period when each instrument is extensively tested, ESOC staff were reduced to a skeleton crew. All but essential personnel worked from home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe pandemic required us to perform critical operations remotely \u2013 the first time we have ever done that,\u201d said Russell Howard, principal investigator for one of Solar Orbiter&#8217;s imagers.<\/p>\n<p>But the team\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.esa.int\/Enabling_Support\/Operations\/Space_missions_return_to_science\">adapted<\/a>, even readying for an unexpected encounter with\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/sci.esa.int\/web\/solar-orbiter\/-\/solar-orbiter-to-pass-through-the-tails-of-comet-atlas\">comet ATLAS\u2019s ion and dust tails\u00a0<\/a>on June 1 and 6, respectively. The spacecraft completed commissioning just in time for its first close solar pass on June<\/p>\n<p>15. As it flew within 48 million miles of the Sun, all\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/content\/solar-orbiter-instruments\">10 instruments<\/a>\u00a0flicked on, and Solar Orbiter snapped the closest pictures of the Sun to date. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/feature\/goddard\/2018\/parker-solar-probe-breaks-record-becomes-closest-spacecraft-to-sun\">Other spacecraft<\/a>\u00a0have been closer, but none have carried Sun-facing imagers.)<\/p>\n<p>Solar Orbiter carries six imaging instruments, each of which studies a different aspect of the Sun. Normally, the first images from a spacecraft confirm the instruments are working; scientists don\u2019t expect new discoveries from them. But the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager, or EUI, on Solar Orbiter returned data hinting at solar features never observed in such detail.<\/p>\n<p>Principal investigator David Berghmans, an astrophysicist at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels, points out what he calls \u201ccampfires\u201d dotting the Sun in EUI\u2019s images.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe campfires we are talking about here are the little nephews of solar flares, at least a million, perhaps a billion times smaller,\u201d Berghmans said. \u201cWhen looking at the new high resolution EUI images, they are literally everywhere we look.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11920\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11920\" style=\"width: 702px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/campfires.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-11920\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/campfires-1024x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"702\" height=\"702\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/campfires-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/campfires-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/campfires-336x336.jpg 336w, https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/campfires-600x600.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/campfires-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/campfires-1536x1536.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/campfires.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/campfires-450x450.jpg 450w, https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/campfires-1200x1200.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/campfires-768x768.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 702px) 100vw, 702px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11920\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Solar Orbiter spots \u2018campfires\u2019 on the Sun. Locations of campfires are annotated with white arrows.<br \/>Credits: Solar Orbiter\/EUI Team (ESA &amp; NASA); CSL, IAS, MPS, PMOD\/WRC, ROB, UCL\/MSSL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It\u2019s not yet clear what these campfires are or how they correspond to solar brightenings observed by other spacecraft. But it\u2019s possible they are mini-explosions known as nanoflares \u2013 tiny but ubiquitous sparks theorized to help heat the Sun&#8217;s outer atmosphere, or corona, to its temperature 300 times hotter than the solar surface.<\/p>\n<p>To know for sure, scientists need a more precise measurement of the campfires&#8217; temperature. Fortunately, the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment, or SPICE instrument, also on Solar Orbiter, does just that.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201c<\/strong>So we&#8217;re eagerly awaiting our next data set,\u201d said Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Auch\u00e8re, principal investigator for SPICE operations at the Institute for Space Astrophysics in Orsay, France. \u201cThe hope is to detect nanoflares for sure and to quantify their role in coronal heating.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Other images from the spacecraft showcase additional promise for later in the mission, when Solar Orbiter is closer to the Sun.<\/p>\n<p>The Solar and Heliospheric Imager, or SoloHI, led by Russell Howard of the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., revealed the so-called zodiacal light, light from the Sun reflecting off of interplanetary dust \u2013 a light so faint that the bright face of the Sun normally obscures it. To see it, SoloHI had to reduce the Sun\u2019s light to one trillionth of its original brightness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe images produced such a perfect zodiacal light pattern, so clean,\u201d Howard said. \u201cThat gives us a lot of confidence that we will be able to see solar wind structures when we get closer to the Sun.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11921\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11921\" style=\"width: 702px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/solohi_firstlight.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-11921\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/solohi_firstlight-992x1024-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"702\" height=\"725\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11921\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The first images from the Solar and Heliospheric Imager, or SoloHI instrument, reveal the zodiacal light (the bright blob of light on the right protruding towards the center). Mercury is also visible as a bright dot on the image left. The straight bright feature on the very edge of the image is a baffle illuminated by reflections from the spacecraft\u2019s solar array.<br \/>Credits: Solar Orbiter\/SoloHI team (ESA &amp; NASA), NRL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Images from the Polar and Helioseismic Imager, or PHI, showed it is also primed for later observations. PHI maps the Sun\u2019s magnetic field, with a special focus on its poles. It will have its heyday later in the mission as Solar Orbiter gradually tilts its orbit to 24 degrees above the plane of the planets, giving it an unprecedented view of the Sun\u2019s poles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe magnetic structures we see at the visible surface show that PHI is receiving top-quality data,\u201d said Sami Solanki, PHI\u2019s principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in G\u00f6ttingen, Germany. \u201cWe\u2019re prepared for great science as more of the Sun\u2019s poles comes into view.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_11922\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11922\" style=\"width: 702px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/solar_orbiter-phi-02.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-11922\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/solar_orbiter-phi-02.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"702\" height=\"702\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-11922\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">This animation shows a sequence of images from the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) on ESA\/NASA&#8217;s Solar Orbiter. PHI measures the magnetic field near the Sun\u2019s surface and allows the investigation of the Sun\u2019s interior via the technique of helioseismology.<br \/>Credits: Solar Orbiter\/ PHI Team\/ESA &amp; NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Today&#8217;s release highlights Solar Orbiter\u2019s imagers, but the mission\u2019s four in situ instruments also revealed initial results. In situ instruments measure the space environment immediately surrounding the spacecraft. The Solar Wind Analyser, or SWA instrument, shared the first dedicated measurements of heavy ions (carbon, oxygen, silicon, iron, and others) in the solar wind from the inner heliosphere.<\/p>\n<p>The new data, including movies and images with detailed descriptions, can be viewed in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/Science_Exploration\/Space_Science\/Solar_Orbiter\/Solar_Orbiter_s_first_view_of_the_Sun_image_gallery\">ESA&#8217;s gallery<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Solar Orbiter is an international cooperative mission between the European Space Agency and NASA. The European Space Operations Centre (ESOC) in Germany operates Solar Orbiter. Solar Orbiter was built by Airbus Defence and Space, and contains 10 instruments: nine provided by ESA member states and ESA. NASA provided one instrument, SoloHI, hardware and sensors for three other instruments, and the Atlas V 411 launch vehicle. The European Space Astronomy Centre (ESAC) in Spain conducts the science operations.<\/p>\n<p><em>The above article is archived from <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/feature\/goddard\/2020\/solar-orbiter-returns-first-data-snaps-closest-pictures-of-the-sun\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><em>NASA.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article By Miles Hatfield NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The first images from ESA\/NASA\u2019s\u00a0Solar Orbiter are now available to the public, including the closest pictures ever taken of the Sun. Solar Orbiter is an international\u00a0collaboration between the European Space Agency, or ESA, and NASA, to study our closest star, the Sun. Launched on<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11923,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","transcript_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,19],"tags":[1582,72,189,472,1581],"class_list":{"0":"post-11917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"category-space","9":"tag-goddard","10":"tag-nasa","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space","13":"tag-sun"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/7-16-2020-10-15-53-AM.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theblackvault.com\/documentarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}