Discover the Sun like rarely seen before thanks to a short video captured by the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter probe. From its very close orbit around our star, Solar Orbiter shows us fascinating phenomena and details of solar activity, such as the coronal “foam,” spicules rising from the chromosphere, and a “small” solar eruption larger than Earth!
Launched in February 2020, the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Solar Orbiter probe was specifically designed to study the Sun up close to better understand its workings. Since its launch, it has made very detailed observations of the Sun’s surface and its corona, revealing previously unknown phenomena. In addition to its role in direct observation, Solar Orbiter also studies the interactions between our star and the Earth’s close space environment.
Yesterday, the ESA released a video showing a close-up view of a small part of the Sun’s surface, revealing the spectacular transition between its lower atmosphereatmosphere and its outer fusion corona.
The Sun’s corona in exquisite detail. © ESA
Multiple Sun Activity-Related Phenomena Observed
As highlighted by the European Space Agency in its statement, several notable solar phenomena are brought to light, providing a unique insight into solar activity in all its complexity:
- in the lower left corner, the coronal “foam” appears as bright gas forming delicate lace-like patterns. This structure often manifests at the base of imposing coronal loops that are typically inaccessible to conventional observations due to their high temperature or low density;
- on the solar horizon, spicules – gas projections – rise from the solar chromospherechromosphere, reaching impressive heights of 10,000 kilometers;
- there is also a small solar eruption larger than Earth being observed;
A solar eruption, apparently modest but actually larger than the Earth, in which cooler materials are ejected upwards before partially falling back (22 seconds); to the left of the center, around 0:30, a coronal rain known as “cold” (likely below 10,000 °C) stands out with its dark color against the bright background of the main coronal loops (around a million degrees). This rain is composed of dense clusters of plasma that fall back towards the Sun due to gravity.
The video was captured on September 27, 2023, by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument aboard the Solar Orbiter when the probe was about a third of the distance between Earth and the Sun, approximately 0.33 astronomical units (AU). For comparison, Mercury is on average about 0.39 AU from the Sun.
It is worth noting that on the day of the video recording, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe had approached within 7.26 million kilometers of the solar surface. Unlike direct solar observation, the American probe studies particles and the magnetic field in the corona and solar wind. Meanwhile, the Solar Orbiter was examining the region where the solar wind originates, providing complementary data to those collected by the Parker Solar Probe. These two space missions complement each other in their approach to studying the Sun, offering unique perspectives that enhance our understanding of our star and its impact on our Solar System.