![]() ![]() ![]() Similarly, measurements by the two probes should result in a better understanding of the solar magnetic field, Velli added. "And the fact that Orbiter can also measure composition will allow us to determine where on the sun the events happened that created the solar wind that we will be seeing," Marco Velli of UCLA, the PSP observatory scientist, said during the AGU news conference. For example, PSP and Solar Orbiter will enable researchers to study the same solar plasma in detail at two very different points in space - close to the sun's surface and much farther out, in Earth's neighborhood. The data gathered by the two probes should mesh well, members of both mission teams have stressed. Solar Orbiter will gather most of its data during its close-approach "perihelion passes," as PSP does, and the primary missions of both craft are scheduled to last seven years. Like PSP, for example, the ESA-led probe will use a series of Venus flybys (plus one of Earth) to reach its operational orbit, which will range from inside Mercury's path to beyond the orbit of Earth. There are numerous parallels between the PSP and Solar Orbiter missions. "The spacecraft will combine in situ and remote sensing observations to gain new information about the solar wind, the heliospheric magnetic field, solar energetic particles, transient interplanetary disturbances and the sun's magnetic field," they added. (1,800 kilograms) spacecraft is outfitted with 10 different science instruments, which it will use "to examine how the sun creates and controls the heliosphere, the vast bubble of charged particles blown by the solar wind into the interstellar medium," ESA officials wrote in a mission description. ![]() Solar Orbiter should flesh out our understanding of the sun in multiple ways. In order to model space weather activity and activity in general on the sun, we need that full global picture of the magnetic field." "That is extremely important for helioseismology, but also for looking at the global magnetic field of the sun. "We've never been able to image the poles of the sun," Gilbert said last month during a news conference at the annual fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in San Francisco. This unique perspective will allow Solar Orbiter to get good looks at our star's polar regions, said Holly Gilbert, NASA deputy project scientist for Solar Orbiter. In addition, the ESA-NASA probe will zoom through space substantially out of the ecliptic, the plane in which the solar system's big planets circle. But the ESA-NASA spacecraft will do some special things of its own.įor starters, Solar Orbiter will look directly at the sun, something that PSP doesn't do ( and you shouldn't, either). Solar Orbiter won't try to match those superlatives on the closest-approach phases of its highly elliptical orbit, the probe will still be about 26 million miles (42 million km) from the sun. ![]()
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