NASA-ESA Solar Orbiter Spacecraft
Source : Indian Express
GS III : Science and Technology

Why in News?

Solar Orbiter spacecraft rocketing around the Sun discovered Sun, its surface is covered in miniature solar flares or otherwise known as campfires to the scientists behind the spacecraft.

Key Facts

• Having continued its exploration efforts NASA and European Space Agency’s spacecraft has now captured the first solar eruption on the Sun’s surface.
• If these eruptions on the Sun’s surface are big enough, they can cause billions of tons of plasma and electrically charged particles to dash towards Earth.
• These eruptions, also known as coronal mass ejections (CME), were observed by the Solar Orbiter.
  • This was the first coronal mass ejection seen by the instrument.
• CME was captured by NASA’s instrument, the Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI).
  • It is onboard the spacecraft.
  • SoloHI observes the solar wind, dust, and cosmic rays that fill the space between the Sun and the planets.
  • It used one of its four detectors at less than 15 per cent of its normal cadence to reduce the amount of data acquired.

NASA-ESA Solar Orbiter Spacecraft

• Solar Orbiter is a collaborative mission between the ESA and NASA to study our Sun.
• Launched on February 10, 2020.
• It carries ten scientific instruments, four of which measure properties of the environment around the spacecraft, especially electromagnetic characteristics of the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing from the Sun.
• Orbiter reached closer to the Sun this year on February 10 when it flew within 48 million miles (77 million kilometers) of the star that is just half the distance between the Sun and Earth.
• Its official mission begins in November when SoloHI and the rest of the remote-sensing instruments will be switched on in full mode.

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