Solar Orbiter Stories

Since the 1960s, astronomers have wondered how the Sun’s supersonic “solar wind,” a stream of energetic particles that flows out into the solar system, continues to receive energy once it leaves the Sun. Now, thanks to a lucky lineup of…

April 17, 2021, was a day like any other day on the Sun, until a brilliant flash erupted and an enormous cloud of solar material billowed away from our star. Such outbursts from the Sun are not unusual, but this…

For new Sun-watching spacecraft, the first solar eruption is always special. On February 12, 2021, a little more than a year from its launch, the European Space Agency and NASA’s Solar Orbiter caught sight of this coronal mass ejection, or…