The closest images taken of the Sun, taken just 77 million kilometers by the European Solar Orbiter probe, allow an unprecedented view of the star and have revealed the presence near its surface of solar mini-bursts, informally called ‘bonfires’.
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The mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) in collaboration with the NASA and an important Spanish contribution, has already made its first step close to the Sun, approximately half the distance between Earth and our star, which has revealed phenomena that, until now, could not be observed in detail.
Daniel Müller, project scientist Solar Orbiter from THAT, He pointed out at a press conference that “we have never been so close to the Sun with a camera” and this is “only the beginning of the epic journey” of the probe that in two years will come “even closer” to our star. The spacecraft was launched last February and will reach 42 million kilometers – almost a quarter of the distance from Earth to the Sun – which is “really the limit” at which images can be taken, according to Holly Gilbert, a project scientist at part of nasa.
The closest images taken of the Sun, taken just 77 million kilometers by the European Solar Orbiter probe, allow an unprecedented view of the star
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The experts highlighted the existence on the Sun of innumerable solar mini-eruptions, which they referred to as ‘bonfires’, near the surface of our star, which were photographed by the Extreme Ultraviolet Image Camera (EUI). Those bonfires are between millions and billions smaller than the solar flares that can be observed from Earth, but they still do not know if they are tiny versions of them or if they are due to different mechanisms.
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Müller indicated that “it is still too soon to draw scientific conclusions”, although there are already theories that its most enigmatic phenomena could contribute to one: the heating of the solar corona, the outermost layer of the Sun’s atmosphere, which extends towards the space and whose temperature exceeds a million degrees, while the surface of the star is 5,500. Spain has an important role in Solar Orbiter, mission in which it leads the Energy Particle Detector (EPD), which is already sending data; SO / PHI magnetograph co-operates with Germany and has collaborated in the creation of other instruments.
So / PHI has drawn without human intervention and from space the first map of our star’s magnetic field, which It is responsible for almost all of the Sun’s activity, from spots to solar storms or the solar wind, a continuous flow of energy particles emitted by the solar corona. “We are very happy. SO / PHI has behaved very well and from the beginning is providing interesting information,” the main co-researcher of the instrument José Carlos del Toro Iniesta, from the Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia (IAA) told Efe in a telephone conversation. -CSIC).
The ship has just started its cruise phase, but as it gets closer to the Sun “we think we are going to find a lot of really shocking things,” according to Del Toro. As it continues its journey, the probe will make closer orbits and will send ever more defined images, since, as the experts recalled, the scientific operations phase has not yet really started. In any case, David Berghmans, principal investigator of the EUI instrument, confessed that the current images are “much better” than expected.
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A mission full of challenges, which has been added the coronavirus pandemic and confinement, which forced part of the operations to be commissioned into orbit from home, a process that, under normal circumstances, requires the joint work of dozens of people.
The deputy director of Operations of the spacecraft Orbiter Solar, José Luis Pellón-Balión, indicated that at first they were “worried” and although it was “difficult” to organize everything to work from home, in the end “it worked quite well, better than expected.” Solar Orbiter will try to answer the big science questions about the Sol And “it will give us an absolutely different vision” from what we have of the star from Earth, said Sami Solanki, researcher of the So / Phi instrument.
In addition, it will be the first to take images of the star’s polar regions, which are, he said, “terra ignota” and from which there will be much to learn, since among other things they are believed to play a role in the creation of the magnetic field. . Solar Orbiter It carries six remote-sensing instruments, with which to observe the Sun and its surroundings, and four “in situ”, which analyze the environment of the ship. Designed for a mission of about ten years, Müller added that engineers are always “conservative” in their forecasts, so it could be longer.
EFE
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