Heliospheric Imager Camera (SoloHI) from ESA and NASA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft captured three planets of the solar system in the foreground: Venus, Earth and Mars, And you will not believe what they look like together in space. It is, without a doubt, one of the best photos of our solar system.
This recording was made on November 18, 2020. The stars are visible in the background, which appear to move in the Solar Orbiter recording as the spacecraft moves around the Sun. Also, the planets move easily in the field of view of SoloHI., But apparently the movements are different due to their individual orbital movements around the Sun.
Venus is the brightest object in the video, about 30 million miles from the Solar Orbiter. The distance to Earth was 251 million kilometers and 332 million kilometers to Mars that day. The sun is right, out of the picture, ESA reports.
At the time of registration, Solar Orbiter was on its way to Venus for its first gravity-assisted flyby, which took place on December 27th. The flight of Venus (left), Earth (center) and Mars (right) will bring the spacecraft closer to the Sun and tilt its orbit to observe our star from different perspectives.
Solar Orbiter is the most complex scientific laboratory ever built to study the Sun and the solar wind, taking images of our star closer than any previous spacecraft. During its initial cruise phase, which lasts until November 2021, Solar Orbiter is already constantly acquiring data with the four instruments on the ground. These instruments measure the conditions around the spacecraft.
SoloHI is one of six remote sensing instruments on board the mission. During the cruise phase, they are still calibrated for certain periods, but are stopped differently. SoloHI takes pictures of the solar wind, the flow of charged particles that the Sun constantly releases into outer space, capturing light scattered by electrons in the wind.
Solar wind, along with strong plasma ejections from the Sun, can cause disturbances in our space environment, a phenomenon called “space weather”, which can damage astronauts, space satellites and disrupt terrestrial technology.
Understanding what causes solar wind and accelerating solar wind particles will help us better predict stormy space weather periods.
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