The Solar Orbiter was the first to record an eruption on the Sun from being “behind” it as viewed from Earth. This was reported by the press service of the European Space Agency (ESA).
As noted, coronal mass ejections were recorded on February 10. Then Solar Orbiter approached the Sun up to half the distance from the star to the Earth. At the same time, he was “behind” the Sun, as viewed from the Earth.
This location of the probe resulted in a very low data transfer rate, writes the ESA. It took a long time to download them fully and are still being analyzed.
Emissions that day were also recorded by the ESA Proba-2 and ESA / NASA SOHO observatory from the “front” of the Earth side of the Sun, the agency notes. In addition, NASA’s STEREO-A satellite, which was far from the Sun-Earth line, caught a glimpse of it.
ESA schematically showed how all of these vehicles were located during the eruption.
See also: The Chang’e 5 probe showed the Earth and the Sun from the L1 Lagrange point 1.5 million km from us – photo
Fixation of coronal mass ejections by several devices from different positions gives a global view of this event, the agency notes.
The ESA explains that the study of these emissions is important, since the emitted particles affect space weather: they can cause disruptions in the operation of some technologies, and also be harmful to unprotected astronauts.
The Solar Orbiter probe was launched on February 10, 2021. Now it is at the cruising stage: four scientific instruments work most of the time, the remaining six are mainly calibrated. The main scientific phase of the mission is scheduled for November.
The study of coronal mass ejections on the Sun is just one aspect of the Solar Orbiter’s mission. The spacecraft will also perform unprecedented observations of the Sun from close range and from high solar latitudes, providing the first images of the Sun’s uncharted polar regions.
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