Project Scientist at ESA (with Solar Orbiter) now advertised

11 February 2025

The European Space Agency maintains a world-leading Science programme spanning heliophysics, planetary science, astrophysics and fundamental physics. As Project Scientist, you will initially be assigned to the Solar Orbiter mission and report to the Head of the Solar System Section in the Science Engagement and Oversight Office (SCI-E) of... read more

Celebrating Solar Orbiter and the women behind the mission

11 February 2025

Behind every successful ESA space mission, there is at least one woman. Behind the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission, there are hundreds of them. With this mosaic, in light of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we are celebrating some of the women who have been working on this mission to explore and better understand our... read more

Scientists spot tiny Sun jets driving fast and slow solar wind

5 February 2025

Back in 2023, we reported on Solar Orbiter’s discovery of tiny jets near the Sun’s south pole that could be powering the solar wind. The team behind this research has now used even more data from the European Space Agency’s prolific solar mission to confirm that these jets exist all over dark patches in the Sun’s atmosphere,... read more

Science Nugget: Velocity field in the solar granulation from two vantage points

22 January 2025

In the solar photosphere, a bright cell pattern called granules are surrounded by a dark channel called intergranular lanes [1]. A granule is a manifestation of an overshooting of a hot upflow from the convectively unstable subsurface layers into the stable photosphere. This vigorous convective process results in generating dynamical... read more

Science Nugget: First joint X-ray solar microflare observations with NuSTAR and Solar Orbiter/STIX

15 January 2025

Hard X-rays (HXR) serve as an important diagnostic for plasma heating and particle acceleration. Therefore, they are crucial for studying flare energy release processes, which are not fully understood. Microflares (GOES B class and smaller flares) are good candidates for studying these processes as they occur more frequently and usually with... read more

See and hear three years of solar fireworks

3 January 2025

At the start of this new year, we look back at close-up pictures and solar flare data recorded by the ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission over the last three years. See and hear for yourself how the number of flares and their intensity increase, a clear sign of the Sun approaching the peak of the 11-year solar cycle.

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Science Nugget: Shocks in tandem: Solar Orbiter observes a fully formed forward-reverse shock pair in the inner heliosphere

18 December 2024

The Sun is an active star, responsible for creating a highly dynamic and complex environment, namely the heliosphere. Solar eruptive phenomena are key consequences of such activity, which recently reached the peak of its 11-years cycle, and their study is of paramount importance to understand many unsolved mysteries of how energy is converted... read more

Science Nugget: High-Energy Insights from an Escaping Coronal Mass Ejection

11 December 2024

Solar eruptive events, consisting of both solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), represent some of the most energetically dynamic phenomena in our solar system. These events involve the rapid release of magnetic energy, which is converted into plasma heating, particle acceleration, and kinetic energy driving the CME. Understanding... read more

Science nugget: Investigation of Venus plasma tail using spacecraft flybys

4 December 2024

Venus lacks a global magnetic field but generates an induced magnetosphere through its interaction with the solar wind. This interaction has been studied mainly close to the planet while the far tail has been less sampled. While the main objectives of Solar Orbiter are related to the Sun and the solar wind, the mission also provides a bonus... read more

Science nugget: Testing the Flux Expansion Factor – Solar Wind Speed Relation with Solar Orbiter data

27 November 2024 The presence of “open” magnetic field lines in the solar atmosphere is associated with magnetic flux tubes evolving into solar wind streams subject to the “frozen-in” condition of plasmas. In this study, we statistically test the v - f anticorrelation, exploiting the Solar Orbiter capability to sample a broader range of radial distances compared... read more