But in February, Solar Orbiter used a gravity-assist flyby around Venus to tilt its trajectory, enabling a view of the sun from about 17 degrees below the equator.

On March 9, 2025, while nearly 48 million miles from the sun, the Solar Orbiter spacecraft was oriented to capture a sweeping view of the solar surface, the European Space Agency noted.

ESA's Solar Orbiter captured a "tube of cooler atmospheric gases snaking its way through the Sun’s magnetic field," according ...

Solar Orbiter used momentum from its flyby of Venus on February 18 to push itself out of the ecliptic plane that contains Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Around a month later, the spacecraft was ...

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft has sent home the highest resolution views of the sun's surface to date, providing fresh views ...

The Solar Orbiter, a joint mission between the European Space Agency and NASA that launched in February 2020, orbits the sun from an average distance of 26 million miles (42 million kilometers).

Solar Orbiter took a total of 200 individual images of the sun, which were stitched together into the mosaic, which is the widest high-resolution image of the sun ever taken.

Solar Orbiter used a slingshot flyby around Venus in February to get out of this plane to view the sun from up to 17 degrees below the solar equator. Future slingshot flybys will provide an even ...

The Solar Orbiter (SolO) recently captured the first direct observations of the Sun's south pole – a region long shrouded in mystery. These unprecedented glimpses are crucial ...