NASA’s Solar Orbiter Snaps Closest-Ever Images Of Sun, Revealing ‘Campfires’
Image via ESA’
NASA’s and ESA’s Solar Orbiter has captured the closest images of the Sun.
The stunning photos, which were taken 48 million miles away from the surface of the hot star, include signs of mini solar flares on the Sun’s surface nicknamed as “campfires” by scientists.
The images were shot during the Solar Orbiter’s testing phase, and the team assures that subsequent images will have a higher resolution as the probe moves closer to the Sun.
Daniel Müller, ESA’s Solar Orbiter Project Scientist, said, “These are only the first images and we can already see interesting new phenomena.”
“We didn’t really expect such great results right from the start. We can also see how our ten scientific instruments complement each other, providing a holistic picture of the Sun and the surrounding environment,” he continued.
The Solar Orbiter used its Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) to capture the miniature flares, which are “a million or billion times smaller” than the flares observed from Earth. This discovery provides an impressive layer of detail because it could help scientists find out why the Sun’s outer layer of atmosphere that extends into outer space, also known as solar corona, is hotter than the surface of the Sun itself.
To find out more about this phenomenon, head over to the ESA website.
[via PetaPixel, opening image via ESA]
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