Latest news with #SamiSolanki
Yomiuri Shimbun
a day ago
- Science
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Solar Orbiter Obtains 1st Images of the Sun's Poles
ESA & NASA / Solar Orbiter / PHI Team, J. Hirzberger (MPS) / 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. 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 June 11 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 65 million kilometers, 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 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. 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, coprincipal 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 1.4 million kilometers, more than 100 times wider than Earth. ESA & NASA / Solar Orbiter / PHI, EUI & SPICE Teams / Handout via Reuters Eight views of the sun's south pole obtained on March 16–17, 2025, by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI), 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. '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 149 million kilometers 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.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Astronomers Just Took the First-Ever Picture of the Bottom of the Sun
Astronomers have gotten an unprecedented view of the bottom of the Sun. On Wednesday, the European Space Agency shared images that show, in all its tumultuous glory, our star's secretive south pole. Captured by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft, the stunning achievement has paved the way towards solving some of the Sun's most abiding mysteries, and could even provide us the insight needed to predict some of the star's volatile behavior that can disrupt our modern infrastructure on Earth. "Today we reveal humankind's first-ever views of the Sun's pole," said Carole Mundell, the ESA's director of science, in a statement. "These new unique views from our Solar Orbiter mission are the beginning of a new era of solar science." Our entire existence is centered on the life-giving Sun — but our view of it remains embarrassingly limited. We're only seeing its equator, because, like every planet in the solar system, the Earth is locked into the same unchanging orbit, known as the ecliptic plane, around the star. To an extent, so are our spacecraft. Breaking free of the ecliptic plane is an immensely fuel-intensive maneuver, and until now, only the ESA/NASA Ulysses mission, which launched in 1990 and ended in 2009, has flown high enough to see the Sun's poles. Unfortunately, it didn't have cameras to capture any images. To pull off its escape act, the Solar Orbiter performed several flybys past Venus, the second planet from the Sun, to get a gravity assist. Once it built enough speed, the spacecraft hurtled itself out of the ecliptic plane and reached a maximum viewing angle of 17 degrees below the solar equator. "We didn't know what exactly to expect from these first observations — the Sun's poles are literally terra incognita," Sami Solanki, director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, who leads a scientific team in charge of one Solar Orbiter's onboard instruments, said in the statement. The orbiter caught the Sun's poles at a bit of an odd moment, however. Right now, the star, as part of its 11-year solar cycle, is nearing the end of its solar maximum, a period of heightened activity in its magnetic field, causing an uptick of its awesome outbursts like solar flares and sunspots. In the recent images taken with the spacecraft's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager, the strongest bands of magnetic activity, represented in dark red and dark blue blotches, fall over the Sun's equator where those outbursts occur. But most relevant here is that the solar maximum culminates in the Sun's magnetic field completely flipping — which makes for quite a mess at the top and bottom. As seen in the PHI view, the southern pole shows signs of both north and south polarity magnetic fields, and all very weak compared to the equator. In other words, right now our host star has no clear north and south pole. This is only temporary, and in about five to six years from now the star will again reach its solar minimum. Activity will calm down, and the poles will be restored to order. Or at least, that's the theory. "How exactly this build-up occurs is still not fully understood, so Solar Orbiter has reached high latitudes at just the right time to follow the whole process from its unique and advantageous perspective," Sami said. After years of collecting data with the Solar Orbiter's Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment instrument (SPICE), which can detect and track the presence of specific elements, scientists have also been able to measure how solar material travels through the layers of the Sun. This could be crucial in unearthing the origins of the solar wind, a powerful gust of energetic particles that are flung off the Sun at tremendous speeds and wash over the entire solar system. And there's more coming down the pipe. The Solar Orbiter has already taken shots of the solar north pole, which are expected to reach Earth this November. The spacecraft will continue flying at its current angle until December 2026, when it will perform another flyby of Venus to reach an even higher orbit of 24 degrees. More on: New Imaging Technique Makes the Sun Look Like a Swirling Pink Liquid
India Today
12-06-2025
- Science
- India Today
Europe's Solar Orbiter clicks world's first picture of Sun's poles
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 European Space Agency on Wednesday released images taken in March using three of Solar Orbiter's onboard 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 Orbiter, developed by ESA in collaboration with the U.S. space agency NASA, was launched in 2020 from 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 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. This image shows Solar Orbiter's view of the Sun's south pole on 23 March 2025. (Photo: ESA) "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 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 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 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 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 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 communicationblackouts, destabilize our power grids, but also drive the sensational auroras," Reid 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 Watch
Ammon
12-06-2025
- Science
- Ammon
Solar Orbiter spacecraft obtains first images of the sun's poles
Ammon News - 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. Reuters
The Independent
11-06-2025
- Science
- The Independent
Solar Orbiter offers first glimpse of sun's poles in breakthrough mission
The first-ever images of the sun 's south pole have been captured by the robotic Solar Orbiter spacecraft. The European Space Agency (ESA) released images on Wednesday using three of Solar Orbiter's onboard instruments. The images, taken in March, show the sun's south pole from a distance of roughly 40 million miles, 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 US 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. But in February, Solar Orbiter used a gravity-assist flyby around Venus to tilt its trajectory, enabling a view of the sun from about 17 degrees below the equator. Future Venus flybys will increase that angle to more than 30 degrees, allowing for even better polar observations. "The best is still to come. What we have seen is just a first quick peek," said solar physicist Sami Solanki from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany, who leads the science team behind the spacecraft's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager. Mr Solanki explained that "the spacecraft observed both poles, first the south pole, then the north pole'. He added: "The north pole's data will arrive in the coming weeks or months." Solar Orbiter is currently collecting information on several solar phenomena, including the sun's magnetic field, its activity cycle, and the solar wind – a constant, high-speed stream of charged particles that flows outward from the sun's outer atmosphere and fills the solar system. "We are not sure what we will find, and it is likely we will see things that we didn't know about before," solar physicist Hamish Reid of UCL's Mullard Space Science Laboratory said. 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," Mr Reid said. The sun's diameter is about 865,000 miles – 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," Mr 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," Mr Solanki said. The sun is located about 93 million miles from our planet. "The data that Solar Orbiter obtains during the coming years will help modellers 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," Mr 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," he 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," Mr Solanki said.
