![]() The result is an awe-inspiring image of the sun, which can be zoomed-in multiple times via the website, revealing detailed close-ups of its radiant solar flares and multitude of sunspots. Each smaller picture took 10 minutes to process, with the entire image taking over four hours to capture. Not only was the photo taken from about 75 million miles away, but the resulting picture was also composed of 25 individual images stitched together. Unlike the more conventional means of photographing celestial bodies, the process by which the ESA captured its ultra-crisp sun picture is much more complex. Currently stationed within Mercury's orbit, the Solar Orbiter is expected to capture more images of the sun, including its previously unseen polar regions. For reference, a 4K TV typically displays a resolution of 3,840 x 2,160, while the average 8K monitor can display resolutions of up to 7,680 x 4,320, both of which are still dwarfed by the image's pixel count. The high-resolution image is made up of more than 83 million pixels, with a resolution of 9,148 x 9,112 pixels. The Solar Orbiter also captured a full image of the sun, the first of its kind in 50 years. Using a combination of Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) and Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) sensors, the satellite was able to capture the highest-resolution photo of the sun ever taken, according to the ESA. The latest high-resolution image of the sun was captured by the Solar Orbiter satellite, a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA. Related: This Planet Orbiting A Dying Sun Could Potentially Sustain Life The spacecraft's previous close passes took place at about half the sun-Earth distance.įollow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter. That means new record-breaking images can be expected. 13, getting slightly closer to the star than in March. Solar Orbiter will make its next close pass at the sun on Oct. Ultimately, they would like to be able to predict in greater detail the effects these flares and coronal mass ejections have on Earth. Researchers hope to be able to create connections between what the cameras, such as the EUI, see on the solar surface and what is going on in the environment around the star. In the weeks around the close pass, the instruments detected several odd events that scientists are still analyzing. Out of the 10 instruments aboard Solar Orbiter, four measure the properties of solar particles that reach the spacecraft. European sun probe flew through the tail of Comet Leonard Mysterious heating of sun's corona powered by solar 'campfires,' study suggests Solar Orbiter spacecraft sends postcard from Venus in flyby video ![]() ![]() In the later part of the mission, the spacecraft's operators will tilt the spacecraft's orbit out of the ecliptic plane, in which planets orbit, to allow it to get a more direct view of the poles, something that has never been done before. Studying the sun's poles is one of the key tasks of the Solar Orbiter mission. By measuring in detail what is happening in the sun's polar regions, solar physicists hope to crack the mystery of this strange behavior. The images of the sun's south pole taken during the close pass are of special interest to scientists studying the behavior of the sun and its 11-year-long cycle of activity, the periodic ebb and flow in the generation of sunspots, solar flares and eruptions.Īt the height of this cycle, the sun's magnetic poles flip, the magnetic north becoming south and vice versa, according to NASA (opens in new tab). "It's almost hard to believe that this is just the start of the mission. ![]() "We are so thrilled with the quality of the data from our first perihelion ," Daniel Müller, Solar Orbiter project scientist at ESA, said in the statement. The sun's south pole in high resolution captured by the European Solar Orbiter spacecraft.
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