The Solar Orbiter, a joint mission between the European Space Agency and NASA that launched in February 2020, orbits the sun from an average distance of 26 million miles (42 million kilometers).

ESA’s Solar Orbiter, a collaboration with NASA, has delivered its most detailed images yet of the Sun’s surface, offering a mesmerizing view of the star’s dynamic and turbulent nature. These ...

Several views of the sun as seen by Solar Orbiter in March 2025. The three larger views show the sun in visible light, map the magnetic field at its surface and show the sun in ultraviolet light.

Launched in February 2020, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Solar Orbiter probe has been looping around the Sun with a special purpose in mind: Studying the poles of our star. The planets orbit ...

Solar Orbiter used momentum from its flyby of Venus on February 18 to push itself out of the ecliptic plane that contains Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Around a month later, the spacecraft was ...

Solar Orbiter will continue to orbit around the Sun at this tilt angle until 24 December 2026, when its next flight past Venus will tilt its orbit to 24°. From 10 June 2029, the spacecraft will ...

Solar Orbiter used a slingshot flyby around Venus in February to get out of this plane to view the sun from up to 17 degrees below the solar equator. Future slingshot flybys will provide an even ...

Given Solar Orbiter’s proximity to the sun, the spacecraft had to be rotated after each image to capture every part of the sun’s face. As a result, each image is the result of a mosaic of 25 ...

The Solar Orbiter, a joint mission between the European Space Agency and NASA that launched in February 2020, orbits the sun from an average distance of 26 million miles.