The Briefing Room
General Category => Science, Technology and Knowledge => Space => Topic started by: Elderberry on February 09, 2020, 05:05:24 pm
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Space.com by Amy Thompson 2/9/2020
Solar Orbiter will be the first craft to capture imagery of the sun's mysterious poles.
Solar Orbiter, an international collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, is scheduled to launch from here on Sunday (Feb. 9). Its goal: to study the sun up close.
To do so, the craft is outfitted with a suite of 10 instruments — four in-situ instruments and six imagers — that will make detailed observations, providing a comprehensive view of our star. The spacecraft will also capture the first images of the sun's polar regions. Liftoff is set for at 11:03 p.m. EST (0403 GMT on Feb. 10).
"Solar Orbiter will be the first time we send a satellite out to take images of the sun's poles, and we'll get the first-ever data of the sun's polar magnetic fields," Daniel Müller, the mission's ESA project scientist, said in a prelaunch science briefing on Feb. 7. "We believe this area holds the keys to unraveling the mysteries of the sun's activity cycle."
You can watch the launch live here (https://www.space.com/17933-nasa-television-webcasts-live-space-tv.html) and on Space.com's homepage, courtesy of NASA TV. NASA's launch webcast will begin at 10:30 p.m. EST (0330 GMT Feb. 19).
More: https://www.space.com/solar-orbiter-sun-poles-science-explained.html (https://www.space.com/solar-orbiter-sun-poles-science-explained.html)