The Solar Orbiter satellite was launched on February 10 with the aim of studying the surface of the Sun and the changes that occur in the solar wind. Over the next 7 years, the probe will periodically approach the Sun as never before was possible: at the end of 2022 there will be the closest passage, 42 million kilometres from the Sun The first close encounter, from a distance of 77 million kilometres (about half of the Earth-Sun distance), took place in recent weeks and the images taken by the ten onboard instruments are starting to arrive. One of these instruments, METIS , is a coronograph, that is a device that allows you to study the solar crown artificially eclipsing the disk of the Sun, which with its brightness would make the crown invisible. This animation collects some of the first images taken by the Solar Orbiter from 77 million kilometres away from the Sun. They are, at the moment, the closest shots of the Sun ever taken. They show the solar corona in the ultraviolet, where temperatures of about 1 million degrees are reached. These images reveal a multitude of gas rings and bright and dark points in constant motion. We can also see small eruptions, in the form of luminous dots, which have been called bonfires. They could be one of the factors that contribute to raising the temperature of the crown and triggering the solar wind. Some bonfires are shown in detail in these photos, indicated by arrows.
Submitted July 21, 2020 at 10:51PM by ethan870 https://ift.tt/2CSjSCu
No comments:
Post a Comment