News Space

ESA’s Solar Orbiter will be the first spacecraft to study the sun’s polar zones

A new solar mission will help solve some of our star’s thorniest mysteries

illustration of ESA Solar Orbiter probe in front of the sun

ESA’s Solar Orbiter probe (illustrated) has begun a nearly two-year journey to gaze directly at the sun from an orbit that takes it closer to the sun than Mercury gets.

ESA/ATG medialab

By Christopher Crockett

- More than 2 years ago

A new sungazing spacecraft has launched on a mission to chart the sun’s unexplored polar regions and to understand how our star creates and controls the vast bubble of plasma that envelops the solar system.