Space probe captures amazing images of the sun: High resolution like never before

Created: 2022-04-02 10:36 p.m

It has never been seen like this: With 83 million pixels, the European Space Agency has shot the highest-resolution photo of the sun ever taken.

Munich - The latest spectacular images of the sun show the star in unprecedented detail.

They were recorded with the Solar Orbiter probe from the European Space Agency (ESA) when the probe was directly between the earth and the sun.

At a distance of about 75 million kilometers, i.e. halfway between Earth and its parent star, the probe was able to capture the impressive images.

High resolution like never before: Sun photographed by a space probe

According to the ESA, with 83 million pixels it is the highest-resolution image of the entire solar disk and its corona that has ever been taken.

The corona is the outer atmosphere that is only visible to the human eye during a solar eclipse.

The image of the sun was taken over a period of more than four hours.

Another photo taken by the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument is the first in 50 years to image the entire star.

Solar Orbiter closer than ever to the sun: ESA succeeds in mission

The solar probe Solar Orbiter has been traveling in space for a good two years in order to get closer to the sun.

On March 26, Solar Orbiter reached another mission milestone.

The probe passed the sun at a distance of only 48 million kilometers.

That corresponds roughly to a third of the distance between our planet and the sun.

In October 2022 she should come a little closer to her.

The Solar Orbiter probe is already in orbit around the inner planet Mercury.

There she can take high-resolution pictures of the sun and record data on the solar wind.

ESA plans to raise the probe's orientation in the coming years to see the sun's previously undiscovered polar regions.

The European Space Agency is working shoulder to shoulder with NASA.

As early as summer 2020, the probe was able to take impressive pictures of the sun*.

Less than half a year after the start in the direction of the center of the solar system, the first photos were sent in the direction of the home planet.

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