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Spacecraft Captures First Footage of Powerful Eruption on the Sun's Surface

The big ball of fire in our sky is actually a sphere of scorching plasma, and the aura around it is even hotter. It's so hot that massive eruptions caused by magnetic storms on the Sun's surface send billions of tons of plasma into space, and these electrically charged particles are constantly hitting the Earth.
An artist's impression of the Solar Orbiter 1 photo
Photo: ESA/ATG medialab
To study our closest star and its influence on space, the European Space Agency and NASA launched a collaborative mission. The spacecraft, dubbed the Solar Orbiter, has a trajectory within the orbit of Mercury that includes 22 close approaches to the Sun.

After a little more than a year after its launch, Solar Orbiter caught its first coronal mass ejection (CME). The video was captured by the mission's Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager, or SoloHI, one of the six remote-sensing instruments onboard the spacecraft designed to take pictures of the solar wind.

To minimize the amount of data collected, SoloHI ran one of its four detectors at less than 15 percent of its usual cadence. Even so, the CME leaving the Sun can still be spotted in the video provided by the space agency. The eruption begins as a bright burst about halfway through the footage and drifts off-screen to the left.

Even though the footage was captured on February 12th, the spacecraft was seen from Earth as being "behind" the Sun, which significantly slowed down the data transfer rate. As a result, data from the flyby took a long time to be downloaded and analyzed.

Solar Orbiter is currently in cruise mode ahead of its main mission, which starts in November this year, and will see SoloHI and the rest of the remote-sensing instruments switch on in full science mode and make joint observations.

Understanding CMEs and being able to monitor their progress as they spread across the Solar System is crucial. On planets with atmospheres, the particles cause auroras, but they can also cause technology malfunctions and harm unprotected astronauts.

Mind you, Solar Orbiter's mission includes more than just studying CMEs. The spacecraft would also have the first pictures of the Sun's uncharted polar regions and provide new insight into how stormy space weather can be better predicted.

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About the author: Florina Spînu
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Florina taught herself how to drive in a Daewoo Tico (a rebadged Suzuki Alto kei car) but her first "real car" was a VW Golf. When she’s not writing about cars, drones or aircraft, Florina likes to read anything related to space exploration and take pictures in the middle of nature.
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