See the ‘quiet’ of the sun’s corona in Solar Orbiter footage

The sun's corona has been captured by the Solar Orbiter mission, which is the closest camera to the sun.

The closest approach was made on October 12th, when it came less than a third of the way between Earth and the sun. The corona was captured using the EUI instrument.

Millions of miles from the sun's surface, the corona is the outer layer of the sun's atmosphere. The surface of the sun is not as hot as it is.

There were no flares or mass ejections when the corona was taken. Changes in the sun's magnetic field cause the corona to be active and changing. In the coming months and years, this calm will be less common as the sun's activity is increasing and is set to peak in 25 years. The most active point in the 11-year cycle is this one.

An area equivalent to 17 Earths is represented by the total image captured by the EUI instrument. Magnetic fields, radio waves, and various types of imagery can be recorded with a variety of other instruments.

More data from the close approach will be coming over the next few weeks as the craft travels in the direction of Earth. The worldwide science community will be very busy discovering new things using the data from the 10 instruments that will be downloaded in the next few weeks.

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