The graphic shows the “Solar Orbiter” in front of the sun. Photo: ATG medialab / ESA / dpa
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(Photo: dpa)
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At 11:39 a.m. and 20 seconds At 11.39 a.m. and 20 seconds (CET) it will be only 7448 kilometers from Venus, according to the European space agency Esa. “The probe is slowed down and the path is changed so that you can also take a look at the poles of the sun,” said the head of the Esa mission operations in the control center in Darmstadt, Simon Plum, of the German press agency. “It’s all in a bag.” In the control center, however, only a small team will watch the flyby due to the corona pandemic. A lot of things run from home. “It’s a scenario with the greatest possible distance.”
The mission of Esa and the US space agency NASA, costing around 1.5 billion euros, was launched in February from Cape Canaveral in the US state of Florida. It should bring new knowledge about our home star, which is around 150 million kilometers away. There are ten scientific instruments on board the 1.8 ton shear orbiter. Researchers hope to gain new knowledge about the sun and the magnetic field, which drives everything else such as solar storms or eruptions and thus also has an impact on our home planet.
“Solar Orbiter” is said to fly within 42 million kilometers of the sun. In order to be protected from temperatures of several hundred degrees, the probe has a titanium heat shield. The first images of the orbiter from a distance of 77 million kilometers were presented in July. According to experts, no mission to take pictures of the star has been this close.
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