Darmstadt The spacecraft “Solar Orbiter” sent its first pictures of the sun less than six months after its launch. Although these are only the first pictures, interesting new phenomena can already be seen, said Daniel Müller, project scientist of the European space organization Esa on Thursday in a virtual presentation. The orbiter is controlled by the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt.
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It is also unique that so far no mission has been able to take pictures of the sun from such a short distance. The orbiter was only 77 million kilometers away from our home star, almost half way between Earth and Sun. The orbiter of Esa and the American space agency Nasa is to provide new insights into our home star on its approximately 1.5 billion euro mission. It is said to approach the sun up to 42 million kilometers away.
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