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News and Highlights

Science nugget: Non-field-aligned solar wind proton beam and its role in wave growth activities

27 September 2023The coupling mechanism of the ubiquitous proton beams with fields is a cutting-edge scientific question in the solar wind wavelike turbulence. Using Solar Orbiter's high-quality measurements, it is found that the proton beam is not strictly parallel to the local magnetic field, exhibiting an intriguing feature of non-field-alignment. This...

Science nugget: Polarisation of Decayless Kink Oscillations of Solar Coronal Loops

20 September 2023The unequivocal and persistently growing interest in studying wave and oscillatory phenomena in the corona is motivated by their use for plasma diagnostics, and for their potential contribution to the enigmatic coronal heating. Recently discovered low-amplitude decayless kink oscillations are among the most promising candidates for both those...

Science nugget: A sharp EUI and SPICE look into the EUV variability and fine-scale structure associated with coronal rain

23 August 2023The solar atmosphere is exceptionally hot, millions of degrees hotter than the underlying surface. However, it can also dramatically cool down due to thermal instability under very specific spatial and temporal conditions of the heating mechanism. For strongly stratified and high-frequency heating, the structures become radiatively unstable and...

Science nugget: Solar flare hard X-rays from the anchor points of an eruptive filament

2 August 2023The hard X-ray imaging spectrometer on Solar Orbiter observes solar flares in the hard X-ray energy range carrying on the observations of its predecessor RHESSI. Here we give an overview of the analysis of a M1.8 GOES class flare as reported in Stiefel et al. (2023).

Science nugget: 3He-rich solar energetic particle events observed close to the Sun on Solar Orbiter

28 June 2023In March 2022 Solar Orbiter had its 4th perihelion flyby, reaching 0.32 of the Earth-Sun distance (au) on March 26. During this pass the Energetic Particle Detector suite observed two series of 3He-rich events.

Science nugget: Observational Evidence of S-web Source of Slow Solar Wind

14 June 2023The solar corona continuously expands outward as hot, magnetized streams of plasma that fill the heliosphere. These streams are classified as the fast and slow solar wind based on a velocity threshold of 500 km/s. Though the origin and characteristics of the fast SW are well-known, this is not the case with the slow SW.

Science nugget: An interesting interplanetary shock

31 May 2023A particularly interesting aspect of the Solar Orbiter exploration is the possibility to study interplanetary shock waves using datasets previously unavailable in terms of quality and heliocentric distances. IP shocks travel in the heliosphere due to solar activity phenomena such as Coronal Mass Ejections and Stream Interaction Regions, are less...

Science nugget: High-resolution imaging of coronal mass ejections from SoloHI

24 May 2023The Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager on board the Solar Orbiter spacecraft observes the Sun’s corona and heliosphere in white light. SoloHI is a next-generation imager building upon the successful STEREO-SECCHI pathfinder imagers and SOHO-LASCO. Heliospheric imagers are designed to observe the transient solar wind structures originating at the...

Science nugget: Direct assessment of far-side helioseismology using SO/PHI magnetograms

17 May 2023Helioseismic imaging is a powerful method to detect active regions on the Sun's far side by using observations of the solar acoustic oscillations. Acoustic waves propagate through the solar interior and connect the far side to the visible side of the Sun. Since waves travel faster in magnetised regions, they have the potential to detect active...

Science nugget: Measuring the nascent solar wind outflow velocities via the doppler dimming technique

10 May 2023Some strong lines in the EUV/UV spectral range are known to be visible in the solar corona up to several solar radii above the limb. These spectral lines are very suitable for the study of the dynamic properties of the continuously expanding corona, which is important for gaining insight into the origin of the solar wind and the creation of the...

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Upcoming Events

5 September 2023: SOOP coordinators feedback meeting (online, invitation only)

18-20 September 2023: Science Working Team (SWT-37) meeting (online)

8-12 April 2024: Solar Orbiter, PSP, DKIST Workshop (Solar Eclipse), San Antonio, Texas, USA

Past Events

10-12 July 2023: Science Operations (SOWG-23) meeting (ESAC, Madrid)

17-19 April 2023: Science Working Team (SWT-36) meeting (Paris)

15 February 2023: Executive Science Working Team (SWT-35) meeting (online)

16-18 January 2023: Science Operations (SOWG-22) meeting (ESAC, Madrid) and Remote-Sensing Group

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