NASA, ESA release ‘unprecedented’ pictures of Sun captured from Solar Orbiter

Scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and European Space Agency (ESA) presented the first images captured by Solar Orbiter, a joint ESA/NASA mission to study the Sun. Solar Orbiter, which was launched on February 9, turned on all of its 10 instruments together for the first time in mid-June as it made its first close pass of the Sun.

During an online news briefing on July 16, mission experts released the closeup images and discussed what these images reveal about the Sun. Holly Gilbert, a NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, said that these “unprecedented pictures” of the Sun are the closest they have ever obtained.

“These amazing images will help scientists piece together the Sun’s atmospheric layers, which is important for understanding how it drives space weather near the Earth and throughout the solar system,” said Gilbert.

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Tiny 'campfires' on Sun's surface

The spacecraft carries six imaging instruments and, normally, scientists don’t expect new discoveries from the first images and only uses it to confirm the instruments are working. However, the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager, or EUI, on Solar Orbiter returned data hinting at solar features never observed in such detail. 

The EUI revealed tiny “campfires” dotting the Sun’s surface - bright spots that may be related to nanoflares, a possible explanation for the incredible heating of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona. Scientists need a more precise measurement of the campfires' temperature to verify the possibility using the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment, also present on Solar Orbiter.

“We didn’t expect such great results so early. These images show that Solar Orbiter is off to an excellent start,” said Daniel Müller, ESA’s Solar Orbiter project scientist.

According to NASA, all 10 instruments flicked on when Solar Orbiter flew within 48 million miles of the Sun and captured closest pictures of the star till date. While other spacecraft have been closer to the Sun, none of them carried Sun-facing imagers.

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(Image Credit: NASA)