Solar Orbiter News

NASA`s James Webb Space Telescope is designed to give the world an unprecedented glimpse into the earliest stages of the universe It arrived at its gravitational parking spot in orbit around the sun on Monday, almost 1 million miles from Earth

Solar Orbiter was launched on February 10, 2020, and carries six remote-sensing instruments, or telescopes, that image the Sun and its surroundings, and four in situ instruments that monitor the environment around the spacecraft. By comparing the data from both sets of instruments, scientists get insights into the generation of the solar wind, the stream of charged particles from the Sun that influences the entire Solar System. Earlier on July 16, 2020, the first images from Solar Orbiter had revealed omnipresent miniature solar flares, dubbed ‘campfires’, near the surface of the Sun.

The NASA on Thursday released the closest pictures ever taken of the Sun by the Solar Orbiter. Launched on February 9 (EST), the spacecraft completed its first close pass of the Sun in mid-June. The spacecraft completed commissioning just in time for its first close solar pass on June 15.

Solar Orbiter is on a unique trajectory that will allow its comprehensive set of instruments to provide humanity with the first-ever images of the Sun's poles, NASA said.

At 12.24 am on Monday, mission controllers at the European Space Operations Centre in Darmstadt, Germany, received a signal from the spacecraft indicating that its solar panels had successfully deployed.