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Solar Orbiter Will Be Checking Out Sun’s Poles for First Time

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The Solar Orbiter will take the first pictures of the sun's north and south poles. (Photo Credit: NASA / Twitter)

A new spacecraft is taking a peek at the sun’s north and south poles for the first time.

Solar Orbiter, a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), is expected to launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida on Feb. 7 at 11:15 p.m. ET. The spacecraft will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket, use Earth’s and Venus’ gravity to swing itself out of the ecliptic plane, and snap the first photos of the sun’s poles, according to NASA.

“Up until Solar Orbiter, all solar imaging instruments have been within the ecliptic plane or very close to it,” said Russell Howard, space scientist at the Naval Research Lab in Washington, D.C. “Now, we’ll be able to look down on the sun from above.”

Checking out the sun’s poles isn’t an easy task: The sidelong view from the ecliptic plane could be problematic for data, especially for spotting arriving solar storms. Scientists have to keep tabs on the sun’s magnetic field, and this works best with a straight-on perspective.

“The poles are particularly important for us to be able to model more accurately,” said Holly Gilbert, NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. “For forecasting space weather events, we need a pretty accurate model of the global magnetic field of the sun.”

The sun’s poles could be key to previous observations and provide clues on sunspot formation. There’s an approximately 11-year solar cycle, which involves the sun transitioning between solar maximum (sunspots proliferate and the sun is active) and solar minimum (fewer sunspots and calmer activity).

During its seven year mission, the Solar Orbiter will reach an inclination of 24 degrees above the sun’s equator and the spacecraft will pass within 26 million miles of the sun at its closest approach.

It’s built with a custom-designed titanium heat shield and special calcium phosphate coating that protects it from the sun’s intense heat. Five of the Solar Orbiter’s remote-sensing instruments will observe the sun via peepholes in the heat shield, while another one will observe the solar wind out to the side of the area.

The Solar Orbiter will work with the Parker Solar Probe, another sun-observing spacecraft launched in August 2018. While Parker samples solar particles from a close distance, the Solar Orbiter will take pictures from far away to heighten observations. Occasionally, the Parker Solar Probe and the Solar Orbiter will align to measure streams of solar wind or the same magnetic field lines at different periods.

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