ESA's Solar Orbiter deep-space probe has made history, returning the first-ever images of the Sun's south pole. It's a world first that sheds a great deal of light on the mysteries of our parent star, ...

We Earthlings see the sun every day of our lives—but gaining a truly new view of our star is a rare and precious thing. So count your lucky stars: for the first time in history, scientists have ...

A recent Venus flyby pushed the spacecraft out of Earth's orbital plane, allowing it to gaze at the solar poles. Reading time 3 minutes For more than 60 years, various spacecraft and telescopes have ...

Plenty of spacecraft and telescopes have throughout the years been able to observe the sun up close – with plenty more missions on the way. In late-December 2024, NASA's Parker Solar Probe got closer ...

For nearly five years, a Sun-observing probe has been making close approaches to the Sun, capturing close-up views of the star’s polar regions to collect clues about its magnetic activity, corona, and ...

The first-ever images of the sun’s south pole have been captured by the robotic Solar Orbiter spacecraft. The European Space Agency (ESA) released images on Wednesday using three of Solar Orbiter's ...

A spacecraft developed by European scientists and companies has captured unprecedented new views of the Sun’s south pole. Built by Airbus in the UK, Solar Orbiter was developed as part of a joint ...

Starry Poles: Launched from Cape Canaveral five years ago, the Solar Orbiter has steadily delivered stunning insights about our star. Its latest achievement – a first-ever glimpse of the Sun's polar ...

Humans just got their first look at the Sun's poles. The European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter captured unprecedented visuals of Earth's star. This is the first time that we have seen a photo and ...

Virtually all space probes that explore the sun from space view our star from the ecliptic. This is the plane in which the planets orbit the sun. Although this plane is slightly tilted relative to the ...

From Earth, we always look towards the Sun's equator. This year, the ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission broke free of this ‘standard’ viewpoint by tilting its orbit to 17° – out of the ecliptic plane where ...

Prior to the ESA releasing the photos, any image you have ever seen of the sun was taken from around its equator. The Solar Orbiter launched February 2020 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in ...