Just ahead of a crucial flyby of Venus, the sun-exploring Solar Orbiter came face to face with a huge eruption of the sun's magnetic field.
The corona shot out from the sun on August 30 in the direction of Venus. The bubble of solar material reached Solar Orbiter, which was about to fly by the second planet of the solar system.
The solar assault could be mitigated by the fact that the observatory is designed to measure the violent eruptions that it just encountered.
The sun's magnetic field, the solar wind, and the sun's surface are all studied by the spacecraft. The instruments were turned off due to the risk of sunlight bouncing off the Venusian atmosphere.
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The Solar Orbiter was able to detect an increase in solar particles during the encounter. A violent solar event sees particles such as protons, electrons and even ionized helium atoms thrown from the sun. Particles like this pose a risk to astronauts. Life and technology on Earth and in space will be protected if we understand their movements in space.
The closest approach to Venus was made at 09:26 pm. There was an event on Sept. 3
The close approach went exactly to plan thanks to a lot of planning from Flight Dynamics and the Flight Control Team.
The aim of the close approach was to allow Solar Orbiter to change its trajectory. The probe made observations of Venus's magnetic field.
The decade-long mission to image the sun from the closest ever distance began in 2020 with the launch of Solar Orbiter. The spaceship uses Venus's gravity to tilt its flight out of the plane in which planets travel. The first-ever observations of the sun's unexplored poles are key to driving the star's 11-year cycle of activity, the ebb and flow in the generation of sunspots, flares and eruptions that affect space weather.
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