Home - Solar Orbiter

27 October 2022The moment of closest approach took place on 12 October at 19:12 UTC (21:12 CEST), when Solar Orbiter was just 29% of the Earth’s distance from the Sun. This movie comes from 13 October, when the spacecraft’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) returned the highest resolution movie of the quiet corona ever taken with any instrument.

12 September 2022With data from its closest pass of the Sun yet, the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft has found compelling clues as to the origin of magnetic switchbacks, and points towards how their physical formation mechanism might help accelerate the solar wind.

5 September 2022In the early hours of Sunday, 4 September, Solar Orbiter flew by Venus for a gravity-assist manoeuvre that alters the spacecraft’s orbit, getting it even closer to the Sun. As if trying to get the orbiter’s attention as it cosied up to another body in the Solar System, the Sun flung an enormous 'coronal mass ejection' straight at the spacecraft...

18 May 2022Powerful flares, breathtaking views across the solar poles, and a curious solar ‘hedgehog’ are amongst the haul of spectacular images, movies and data returned by Solar Orbiter from its first close approach to the Sun. Although the analysis of the new dataset has only just started, it is already clear that the ESA-led mission is providing the...

24 March 2022Solar Orbiter’s latest images shows the full Sun in unprecedented detail. They were taken on 7 March, when the spacecraft was crossing directly between the Earth and Sun at a distance of roughly 75 million kilometres, half way between our world and its parent star. The high-resolution telescope of EUI takes pictures of such high spatial...

7 March 2022The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft is speeding towards its historic first close pass of the Sun. On 14 March, the spacecraft will pass the orbit of Mercury, the scorched inner planet of our Solar System, and on 26 March it will reach closest approach to the Sun. On 26 March, Solar Orbiter will be less than one-third of the distance from the...

18 February 2022The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft has captured the largest solar prominence eruption ever observed in a single image together with the full solar disc. This latest event took place on 15 February and extended millions of kilometres into space. The coronal mass ejection was not directed at Earth. In fact, it is travelling away from us. There...

23 November 2021Solar Orbiter is returning to Earth for a flyby before starting its main science mission to explore the Sun and its connection to ‘space weather’. During the flyby Solar Orbiter must pass through the clouds of space debris that surround our planet, making this manoeuvre the riskiest flyby yet for a science mission.

27 April 2021Computer simulations show that the miniature solar flares nicknamed ‘campfires’, discovered last year by ESA’s Solar Orbiter, are likely driven by a process that may contribute significantly to the heating of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona. If confirmed by further observations this adds a key piece to the puzzle of what heats the solar...

10 December 2020Solar Orbiter’s latest results show that the mission is making the first direct connections between events at the solar surface and what’s happening in interplanetary space around the spacecraft. It is also giving us new insights into solar ‘campfires’, space weather and disintegrating comets.