The first ever images of the sun’s south pole have been snapped by satellite launched by the European Space Agency (ESA).
Until now, every image of the sun has been taken from straight on, along the ‘elliptical plane’ – the flat disk on which all planets orbit.
But by tilting its orbit to 17 degrees below the equator, the ESA’s solar orbiter has managed to reveal a side of our home star that has never been seen before.
Soon, the probe will tilt its orbit lower for an even better view – meaning the best images are yet to come.
By meeting up with Venus once every few orbits, the orbiter can use the planet’s gravity to shift and tilt its orbit.
This has already allowed the probe to make some exciting new discoveries about the sun, and the researchers behind the project say that revelations are on the way.
Dr Hamish Reid, an astronomer at UCL and UK co-investigator on the orbiter’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager, told MailOnline: ‘This moment is very significant; we have been waiting decades since we first started observing the Sun to catch a glimpse of the poles.
‘This really is the missing piece of the puzzle in our understanding of the solar magnetic field.’
The European Space Agency has captured the first ever image of the sun’s south pole, a region normally hidden from all planets and modern satellites in the solar system
The Solar Orbiter has already used three of its 10 instruments to make new measurements of the sun’s south pole, revealing the mechanisms that produce space weather
Solar Orbiter used three instruments to capture images of the sun’s hidden south pole, each looking at the sun in a different way.
The Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) was used to study the sun in visible light and map the surface magnetic field.
The Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) captures ultraviolet light to reveal million-degree charged gas in the Sun’s outer atmosphere.
Meanwhile the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument reveals the layers of the sun’s atmosphere by capturing light from different temperatures of charged gas.
Dr Sami Solanki, of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, says: ‘We didn’t know what exactly to expect from these first observations – the Sun’s poles are literally terra incognita.’
Already, these observations are helping scientists understand how the sun’s ever-changing weather could impact Earth.
The sun’s magnetic poles flip roughly once every 11 years in a process known as the solar cycle.
This flip coincides with a period of massively increased activity known as the solar maximum, sending huge solar flares and waves of ejected material hurtling towards Earth.
Using its magnetic sensors, the probe has revealed that the sun’s magnetic fields are a mess at the moment. The south pole (pictured) currently has areas of north (red) and south (blue) polarity magnetic fields
Solar Orbiter used three instruments to capture images of the sun’s hidden south pole, each looking at the sun in a different way
While these events can have serious consequences for our planet’s electronics and communications systems, we don’t know enough about the sun’s magnetic poles to predict exactly when a solar maximum will occur.
Professor Lucie Green, an astronomer at UCL and co-investigator on the EUI, says: ‘Being able to observe the poles is vital for understanding how the Sun’s magnetic field operates on a global scale, leading to an 11-year cycle in the Sun’s activity.’
One of the Solar Orbiters’ first observations is that the magnetic fields at the sun’s south pole are currently in a state of disarray.
A normal bar magnet will have a clear north and south pole, but the sun’s south pole currently has both north and south magnetic fields present.
This only happens for a short time during the solar maximum right after the magnetic poles flip.
After the flip, the polarity will slowly build up over the next five years to create clear north and south poles, bringing the sun to its most stable period known as a solar minimum.
Scientists still don’t fully understand how this build-up process happens, but the Solar Orbiters’ new position should help them find out.
Professor Green says: ‘We’ll see previously unobserved high-latitude flows that carry magnetic elements to the polar regions, and in doing so sow the fundamental seeds for the next solar cycle.’
This period of messy solar activity coincides with the ‘solar maximum’, a short period during which the sun’s magnetic poles flip. This is the period in which Earth is hit with the most solar flares and solar wind
In addition to capturing the changing magnetic fields, the Solar Orbiter has captured the first look inside the south pole’s different layers.
The SPICE instrument measures the light, or spectral lines, sent out by specific chemicals when they are heated to known temperatures.
By tracking these spectral lines, the Solar Orbiter can work out how fast clumps of solar material are moving in a process called ‘Doppler measurement’.
Tracking how these particles move between the sun’s layers is vitally important since it can reveal how this material is flung out of the sun in the form of solar wind.
Solar wind is responsible for triggering the Northern Lights but can also damage satellites in orbit, disrupt power grids on land, and bathe astronauts in dangerous radiation.
Having now dropped below the equator, the Solar Orbiter could now help scientists understand this disruptive phenomenon.
aDr Frédéric Auchère, an astronomer from the University of Paris-Saclay and SPICE team leader, says: ‘Doppler measurements of solar wind setting off from the Sun by current and past space missions have been hampered by the grazing view of the solar poles.
‘Measurements from high latitudes, now possible with Solar Orbiter, will be a revolution in solar physics.’
Scientists have used the Solar Orbiter to look at how particles move through the sun’s layers. This image shows the light sent out by carbon particles heated to 32,000 °C
This image shows how those carbon particles are moving towards or away from the probe. Blue regions show clumps of material moving out of the sun towards the orbiter, while red patches show particles moving away
However, these are just the very first observations and scientists say that more measurements and even more discoveries are yet to come.
Large parts of the data from the first images still need to be analysed, with the full dataset expected to arrive back on Earth by October this year.
In the years to come, all ten of the Solar Orbiter’s instruments will collect vast quantities of data as further meet-ups with Venus shift the craft to an even more tilted orbit.
Eventually, the Solar Orbiter will hit an angle of 33 degrees below the equator, giving an extremely clear view of the sun’s southern pole.
Dr Daniel Müller, ESA’s Solar Orbiter project scientist, says: ‘This is just the first step of Solar Orbiter’s ‘stairway to heaven’. In the coming years, the spacecraft will climb further out of the ecliptic plane for ever better views of the Sun’s polar regions.
‘These data will transform our understanding of the Sun’s magnetic field, the solar wind, and solar activity.’
ESA’S SOLAR ORBITER: THE BRITISH BUILT SPACECRAFT WILL BE THE FIRST TO CAPTURE IMAGES OF THE SUN’S POLAR REGIONS
Solar Orbiter is a European Space Agency mission with support from NASA to explore the Sun and the effect our host star has on the solar system — including Earth.
Solar Orbiter (artist’s impression) is a European Space Agency mission to explore the sun and its effect on the solar system. Its launch is planned for 2020 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA
The satellite launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida in February 2020 and reached its first close approach to the sun in June 2020.
It was built in Stevenage, England and is loaded with a carefully selected set of 10 telescopes and direct sensing instruments.
Solar Orbiter will fly within 26 million miles (43 million km) of the solar surface to closely inspect our star’s poles.
Scientists are investigating how the sun’s violent outer atmosphere, also known as its corona, forms.
It was built in Stevenage, England and is loaded with a carefully selected set of 10 telescopes and direct sensing instruments
This is the region from which ‘solar wind’ — storms of charged particles that can disrupt electronics on Earth — are blown out into space.
Through Solar Orbiter, researchers hope to unravel what triggers solar storms to help better predict them in future.
The Solar Orbiter’s heat shields are expected to reach temperatures of up to 600C (1,112F) during its closest flybys.
It will work closely with Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe, which launched in August 2018, and is also studying the Sun’s corona.
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