The recent total solar eclipse of April 8 provided a rare glimpse of the turbulent solar corona, including some eye-catching prominences. These views were interesting, but new video captured by Europe’s Sun-buzzing probe offers some of the best close-up views of our host star we’ve ever seen.
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This incredible video, captured on September 27, 2023 by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument aboard the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter, shows the Sun from an impressive distance, as shown by ESA. explain in a press release.
At the time of recording, the spacecraft was positioned about a third of the distance between Earth and the Sun, or 0.33 AU. For comparison, Mercury sits on average about 0.39 AU from the Sun. It’s a close contact with the Sun, but Solar Orbiter is on a trajectory for an even closer approach, which is expected to reach a minimum distance of 43 million kilometers (0.287 AU) from the Sun on October 7.
The solar corona in every detail
-The video captures a complex and dynamic stellar environment, vividly showing the transition from the Sun’s lower atmosphere to its much hotter outer corona. Wispy, hair-like structures made of plasma or charged gas reveal the presence of magnetic field lines sprouting from the Sun’s interior. The ESA says the brightest spots seen in the video reach temperatures of around a million degrees Celsius, with the dark spots being areas where radiation is absorbed.
ESA also provided a annotated version of the video to explain the different features, but here’s a breakdown. The delicate lace-like patterns created by the glowing gas known as coronal “foam” can be seen in the lower left corner; These patterns are typically found around the base of large coronal loops that are invisible under current instrument settings. Along the solar horizon, towering spiers of gas called spicules extend out to about 10,000 kilometers from the Sun’s chromosphere. In the center, 22 seconds into the video, a small eruption occurs, one that is actually larger than Earth, showing cooler material being lifted upwards and then largely falling downwards. Coronal showers can also be observed among the erupting plasma streams.
On the same day that this video was recorded, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe passed within 4.5 million miles (7.26 million kilometers) of the solar surface, measuring particles and the magnetic field of the solar corona and solar wind, according to the ESA. This created a golden opportunity for collaboration, as Solar Orbiter’s remote sensing instruments, led by the ESA, observed the source region of the solar wind that Parker would later encounter.
So yes, the Sun is very hot right now, both literally and for stellar scientists with their intrepid solar spacecraft.
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