From 77 million kilometers (or 48 million miles) away from the Sun, the Solar Orbiter spacecraft has taken some breathtaking up-close images of the closest star to the Earth, revealing tiny solar flares that have been described as “campfires.”
Our @ESASolarOrbiter mission’s first images of #TheSunUpClose reveal ‘campfires’ features 👉 https://t.co/RZbNZJIYSr pic.twitter.com/mzikuyGPge
— European Space Agency (@esa) July 16, 2020
As reported on weather.com, Launched February 10th of this year, the Solar Orbiter took this images in late May when it was at its perihelion, the closest point to the sun it will hit in its elliptical orbit.
The so-called “campfires” are small solar flares–millions or billions times smaller than the ones observed by Earth-based telescopes–that pop up due to shifts in the Sun’s magnetic field.
The Solar Orbiter is equipped with four instruments to observe and measure the Sun’s activities, from solar winds, to temperature difference, to examinations of the Sun’s corona. It also has six cameras, called “remote-sensing instruments,” to photograph the Sun using a different types of imagery.