Scientists send Solar Orbiter ‘to get up close and personal with the Sun’
A European Space Agency mission to make unprecedented close-up observations of the Sun is due to launch next Saturday.
The project gives scientists “an opportunity to get up close and personal with our star” and could help unlock the secrets of solar wind, according to one of the leading members of the team, Professor Lucie Green from the University College London.
Solar wind refers to beams of high-energy particles from the Sun that typically travel towards the Earth at around 300 miles per hour.
The particles can puncture the magnetic field and get into the atmosphere. Very occasionally this happens in large enoughdosestointerferewith power supplies, internet service, GPS navigation and other satellite systems and, potentially, the micro-electronics of aircraft.
The last major solar storm on Earth was in 1989, knocking out the electricity supply in Quebec, plunging several million Canadians into darkness for nine hours.
The so-called Solar Orbiter will fly to within 26 million miles of the Sun. The threeand-a-half-year journey will take the satellite more than two thirds of the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
By studying the solar radiation much closer to its source, rather than as it appears on the Earth after being endlessly reshaped and reformed during its 93 million mile journey, scientists aim to transform their understanding of “space weather”. This could pave the way for making much more accurate forecasts, so that Earth can prepare for bad space weather.
This mission will not be the closest a probe has ever flown to the Sun, with Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe set to travel to within 3.8 million miles of the solar surface within the next few years.
However, the observations it will collect will be far more detailed than in previous solar missions because it has an unprecedented array of sensitive cameras, telescopes and sensors recording and measuring different wavelengths of light, such as X-rays and radio waves.
Furthermore, it will allow scientists to see and take measurements of the north and south pole of the Sun for the first time, increasing their understanding of solar wind. Prof Lucie said: “This is epic. Solar Orbiter gives us this ability to get up and close and personal with a star. This is the only star in the universe that we can do this with. It’s going to have a big impact on science.”