Solar Orbiter facing the Sun
Date: 11 December 2019
Copyright: ESA/ATG medialab
During its closest approaches of the Sun, which brings Solar Orbiter to within the orbit of Mercury, the spacecraft will be travelling fast enough to study how magnetically active regions evolve for up to four weeks at a time.
Solar Orbiter is an ESA mission with strong NASA participation. Its mission is to perform unprecedented close-up observations of the Sun and from high-latitudes, providing the first images of the uncharted polar regions of the Sun, and investigating the Sun-Earth connection.
Last Update: 30 September 2020