Solar Orbiter spacecraft obtains first images of the sun's poles

Eight views of the sun's south pole obtained on March 16–17, 2025, by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft's the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI), the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) and Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instruments, are seen in this image released by the European Space Agency on June 11, 2025. ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/PHI, EUI & SPICE Teams/Handout via REUTERS
A radiance map of the sun's south pole as recorded by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft is seen in this image released by the European Space Agency on June 11, 2025. ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/PHI Team, J. Hirzberger (MPS)/Handout via REUTERS
The robotic Solar Orbiter spacecraft has obtained the first images ever taken of our sun's two poles as scientists seek a deeper understanding of Earth's host star, including its magnetic field, its 11-year cycle of activity and the solar wind.
The European Space Agency on Wednesday released images taken in March using three of Solar Orbiter's onboard instruments. They show the sun's south pole from a distance of roughly 40 million miles (65 million km), obtained at a period of maximum solar activity. Images of the north pole are still being transmitted by the spacecraft back to Earth.
Solar Orbiter, developed by ESA in collaboration with the U.S. space agency NASA, was launched in 2020 from Florida.
Until now, all the views of the sun have come from the same vantage point - looking face-on toward its equator from the plane on which Earth and most of the solar system's other planets orbit, called the ecliptic plane.
Solar Orbiter used a slingshot flyby around Venus in February to get out of this plane to view the sun from up to 17 degrees below the solar equator. Future slingshot flybys will provide an even better view, at beyond 30 degrees.
"The best is still to come. What we have seen is just a first quick peek," said solar physicist Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, who heads the scientific team for the spacecraft's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager instrument.
"The spacecraft observed both poles, first the south pole, then the north pole," Solanki said. "The north pole's data will arrive in the coming weeks or months."
Solar Orbiter is gathering data on phenomena including the sun's magnetic field, its activity cycle, and the solar wind, a relentless high-speed flow of charged particles emanating from the sun's outermost atmospheric layer that fills interplanetary space.
"We are not sure what we will find, and it is likely we will see things that we didn't know about before," said solar physicist Hamish Reid of University College London's Mullard Space Science Laboratory, UK co-principal investigator of Solar Orbiter's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager instrument.
The sun is a ball of hot electrically charged gas that, as it moves, generates a powerful magnetic field, which flips from south to north and back again every 11 years in what is called the solar cycle.
The magnetic field drives the formation of sunspots, cooler regions on the solar surface that appear as dark blotches. At the cycle's beginning, the sun has fewer sunspots. Their number increases as the cycle progresses, before starting all over again.
"What we have been missing to really understand this (solar cycle) is what is actually happening at the top and bottom of the sun," Reid said.
The sun's diameter is about 865,000 miles (1.4 million km), more than 100 times wider than Earth.
"Whilst the Earth has a clear north and south pole, the Solar Orbiter measurements show both north and south polarity magnetic fields are currently present at the south pole of the sun. This happens during the maximum in activity of the solar cycle, when the sun's magnetic field is about to flip. In the coming years, the sun will reach solar minimum, and we expect to see a more orderly magnetic field around the poles of the sun," Reid said.
"We see in the images and movies of the polar regions that the sun's magnetic field is chaotic at the poles at the (current) phase of the solar cycle - high solar activity, cycle maximum," Solanki said.
The sun is located about 93 million miles (149 million km) from our planet.
"The data that Solar Orbiter obtains during the coming years will help modelers in predicting the solar cycle. This is important for us on Earth because the sun's activity causes solar flares and coronal mass ejections which can result in radio communication blackouts, destabilize our power grids, but also drive the sensational auroras," Reid said.
"Solar Orbiter's new vantage point out of the ecliptic will also allow us to get a better picture of how the solar wind expands to form the heliosphere, a vast bubble around the sun and its planets," Reid added.
A previous spacecraft, Ulysses, flew over the solar poles in the 1990s.
"Ulysses, however, was blind in the sense that it did not carry any optical instruments - telescopes or cameras - and hence could only sense the solar wind passing the spacecraft directly, but could not image the sun," Solanki said. REUTERS
Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Business Times

a day ago

• Business Times

SpaceX Starship explodes on Texas launch pad

[HOUSTON] A SpaceX Starship rocket exploded during a routine ground test in Texas late on Wednesday, the company said, in the latest setback to billionaire Elon Musk's dream of sending humans to Mars. The explosion - which sent a towering fireball into the air - happened at the Starbase launch facility at about 11:00 pm (0400 GMT Thursday), SpaceX and law enforcement officials said. As the company prepared for a static fire test, 'a sudden energetic event resulted in the complete loss of Starship and damage to the immediate area surrounding the stand,' it said on Thursday, updating its initial statement. 'The explosion ignited several fires at the test site which remains clear of personnel,' it said. 'As is the case before any test, a safety zone was established around the test site and was maintained throughout the operation. There are no reported injuries, and all personnel are safe and accounted for.' During a static fire test, part of the procedures preceding a launch, the Starship's first-stage Super Heavy booster would be anchored to the ground to prevent it from lifting off during the test-firing. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Starbase, on the south Texas coast near the border with Mexico, is the headquarters for Musk's space project. The company was preparing for the 10th test flight of Starship. 'Initial analysis indicates the potential failure of a pressurised tank known as a COPV, or composite overwrapped pressure vessel, containing gaseous nitrogen in Starship's nosecone area, but the full data review is ongoing,' SpaceX said. Musk appeared to downplay the incident on Thursday. 'Just a scratch,' he posted on his social media platform X. Mega-rocket Standing 123 m tall, Starship is the world's largest and most powerful rocket and is central to Musk's long-term vision of building a long-term colony on Mars. The Starship is billed as a fully reusable rocket with a payload capacity of up to 150 metric tons. The latest setback follows the explosion of a prototype Starship over the Indian Ocean in late May. That day, the biggest and most powerful launch vehicle ever built had lifted off from the Starbase facility, but the Super Heavy booster blew up instead of executing its planned splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico. The previous two outings also ended poorly, with the upper stage disintegrating over the Caribbean. However, the failures will likely do little to dent Musk's spacefaring ambitions. SpaceX has been betting that its 'fail fast, learn fast' ethos, which has helped it dominate commercial spaceflight, will eventually pay off. The company has caught the Super Heavy booster in the launch tower's giant robotic arms three times - a daring engineering feat it sees as key to rapid reusability and slashing costs. Nasa is also increasingly reliant on SpaceX, whose Dragon spacecraft is vital for ferrying astronauts to and from the International Space Station. SpaceX said on Thursday that there are 'no commonalities' between the COPVs used on Starship - the current focus on the investigation - and those used on Falcon. The Federal Aviation Administration approved an increase in annual Starship rocket launches from five to 25 in early May, stating that the increased frequency would not adversely affect the environment. The decision overruled objections from conservation groups that had warned the expansion could endanger sea turtles and shorebirds. AFP

Straits Times

2 days ago

• Straits Times

SpaceX's Starship explodes on test stand in yet another setback

SpaceX's Starship explodes on test stand in yet another setback TEXAS – A SpaceX Starship exploded on a test stand in Texas, one more setback to Mr Elon Musk's ambitions to operate return trips to Mars. The huge blast enveloped the craft as it stood upright at Starbase, before massive plumes of flames and smoke mushroomed into the night sky, video footage of the incident late on J une 18 showed. The incident shook windows and rattled dishes, according to local media reports. The rocket appeared to be undergoing a routine 'static fire test' of its engines. A static fire test is a pre-launch procedure in which a rocket's engines are fired while the rocket remains securely held down on the launch pad – essentially a rehearsal for the real launch, allowing engineers to test the rocket's systems without actually sending it into space. In a statement, SpaceX said the Starship 'experienced a major anomaly' during preparations for a 10th flight test. No one was injured and local residents aren't at risk, the company said. The scale of the incident wasn't immediately clear. But it adds to a series of setbacks for a spaceship program that's central to Nasa's plans to put American boots back on the moon – and also to Mr Musk's grander ambitions to send cargo and people to Mars. SpaceX holds contracts with American space agency Nasa worth around US$4 billion (S$5.1 billion) to land the agency's astronauts on the moon using Starship. I n May , SpaceX's colossal Starship disintegrated mid-flight after leaking propellant and spinning out of control. That loss was its third consecutive setback after flights in January and March were cut short just minutes after take-off when the spacecraft exploded over the Gulf of Mexico, sending debris raining down from the sky and disrupting air travel. As the world's largest and most powerful launch system, Starship is meant to serve as the primary spacecraft for transporting people to Mars and then bringing them back to Earth. Mr Musk has said he plans to send a Starship rocket to the Red Planet carrying robots built by Tesla Inc as early as 2026. As Mr Musk, the world's richest person, steps back from his political work in Washington to refocus on his business empire, there are still some questions over how much time he'll spend on Starship and SpaceX, and what changes he'll make inside the company to get the program back on track. BLOOMBERG Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.

Straits Times

12-06-2025

• Straits Times

Space station leaks trigger delay to private astronaut mission

Small cracks on the ISS in recent years, particularly on the ageing Russian segment, mean the ISS will be retired by 2030. PHOTO: REUTERS WASHINGTON - Nasa indefinitely delayed a four-person crew's mission to the International Space Station (ISS) on June 12 over an escalating probe into air leaks aboard the orbiting laboratory's Russian segment. The US space agency said it was working with Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, to 'understand a new pressure signature' detected by cosmonauts in the Zvezda Service Module, a more than two-decade-old core compartment that for months has sprung small leaks. 'Cosmonauts aboard the space station recently performed inspections of the pressurised module's interior surfaces, sealed some additional areas of interest, and measured the current leak rate,' Nasa said, in a statement. 'Following this effort, the segment now is holding pressure.' The agency did not immediately respond to questions on what the leak rate was. Small cracks on the ISS in recent years, particularly on the ageing Russian segment, have contributed to the international partnership's decision to retire the ISS by 2030. Leaks of air from the cracks have been minor and posed no immediate safety threats to the station's astronauts but are increasingly worrisome signs of ageing that Nasa and Roscosmos have been investigating, while having crew members patch the leaks with tape, glue and other solutions. REUTERS Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.