![]() The comet was first discovered in December 2019 by the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) and its fragmentation was confirmed in April 2020.įind out more here at ESA. The telescope resolved roughly 25 fragments of the comet on 23 April. The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has provided astronomers with the sharpest view yet of the breakup of Comet C/2019 Y4 (ATLAS). The image below shows one of these campfires pointed out with a white arrow. It is not clear yet whether or not these are the same phenomena as nano-flares but as more data come in we may soon know. Solar Orbiter with its super close extreme ultraviolet images from EUI has observed tiny little explosions that scientists are calling “campfires”. A long standing culprit could be tiny magnetic explosions called nano-flares. Something is putting energy into and heating up the corona. The outer atmosphere called the corona (“crown”) is several million Kelvin (millions of degrees Fahrenheit). The Sun’s visible surface or photosphere is a cool 6,000 Kelvin (10,000 degrees Fahrenheit). Solar CampfiresĪ long standing mystery in solar physics is the Sun’s super hot corona. Being able to map the location of the solar wind that is passing by the spacecraft is one of goals of the mission. ![]() The green cross near the north pole is the region calculated to be the source of solar wind which Solar Orbiter measured when it passed the spacecraft. The Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) team imaged the Sun in extreme ultraviolet shown in the video above. The first data was released to the public in September 2020 and some of the first results were highlighted at the Fall 2020 AGU meeting in December 2020.ĭuring the AGU meeting, members of the Solar Orbiter team presented a few results based on their preliminary data. Remember the distance from Earth to the Sun is 150 million kilometers (93 millions miles). It made its first approach to the Sun on Jwhen it was 77 million kilometers (48 million miles) from the Sun. Solar Orbiter is in its initial cruise phase until November 2021. This mission is a single spacecraft designed with a suite of 10 instrument, 6 of which remotely image the Sun in different wavelengths of light and 4 providing in situ or “in person” measurements of particles and fields from the Sun. It was launched from Kennedy Space Center at 11:03 pm ET on February 9, 2020. Februmarks the one year anniversary of the launch of the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter Mission.
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