UPSC Prelims 2020 Important topics: Solar Orbiter Mission

Solar Orbiter mission was launched recently.

  • The mission is a collaboration between ESA (the European Space Agency) and NASA.
  • The spacecraft was launched from Cape Canaveral on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.

Details:

  • It will observe the Sun with high spatial resolution telescopes and capture observations in the environment directly surrounding the spacecraft to know how the Sun can affect the space environment throughout the solar system.
  • It also intends to give a better understanding of how stars can affect the space environment throughout the solar system.
  • The spacecraft also will be the first to provide images of the Sun’s poles.

The mapping of Sun’s pole could allow for the first time to observe the concentrated source of solar wind that permeates our solar system.

The solar wind is the mixture of charged particles that are highly concentrated at the poles and beam through our solar system, affecting satellites and electronic devices on Earth.

  • The mission will also study the magnetic environment around the Sun, which in turn will provide information about the Sun’s 11-year solar cycle and its periodic outpouring of solar storms.

Solar Orbiter answer following questions:

  1. What drives the solar wind and where does the coronal magnetic field originate from?
  2. How do solar transients drive heliosphere variability?
  3. How do solar eruptions produce energetic particle radiation that fills the heliosphere?
  4. How does the solar dynamo work and drive connections between the Sun and the heliosphere?

Background:

Solar Orbiter follows the Ulysses spacecraft, another collaboration between ESA and NASA that launched in 1990 and also flew over the sun’s poles. Ulysses completed three passes of the sun before its mission ended in 2009, but its view was limited to what it could see from the sun’s equator.

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