NASA And ESA Solar Orbiter Completes Its Pass By The Sun

Last week a joint mission between NASA and the ESA hit a significant milestone. On March 26, the Solar Orbiter completed a close pass through the sun’s corona. The close pass allowed the spacecraft to utilize its instruments closer to the sun than ever in the past.

The Solar Orbiter has ten instruments aboard that work together to capture new data on the sun of a type never captured in the past. At the closest point to the sun, the spacecraft was less than a third of the distance between the sun and earth.

While this was the closest pass by the sun, its first close orbit around the sun happened in June 2020. That pass put the spacecraft 77 million kilometers away from the sun’s surface. That distance is about halfway between the earth and the sun.

The March 26 flyby put the Solar Orbiter about 48 million kilometers from the sun’s surface. The spacecraft crossed the orbit of Mercury on March 14 and will again cross the orbit of Mercury on April 6. Images from the close pass are expected to be released in the coming weeks.