Good, here’s something you don’t all see day.
On November 18, 2020, the Solar Orbiter according to a European Space Agency managed to capture three of the eight planets of our solar system in one frame statement. The resulting four-second movie was put together from a series of still images taken over it 22 hours.
Venus is the largest and brightest object, followed by Earth and then Mars at the bottom right of the frame. What’s especially cool about this vantage point is that the probe peers back into the solar system as it moves away from the sun and towards Venus.
When the photos were taken, Solar Orbiter was 30 million miles (48 million km) from Venus, 156 million miles (251 million km) from Earth, and 206 million miles (332 million km) from Mars. The sun is out of frame at the bottom right, but the glow is clearly visible.
The spacecraft, a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, was on his way to Venus for a gravitational help with the images were taken using his Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) camera. Solar Orbiter finally flew past Venus on December 27. A constant diet of flybys with Earth and Venus will move the probe closer to the sun. and also tilt its orbital axis so that it can observe the sun from different angles.
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Launched in February 2020 and equipped with 10 different instruments, Solar Orbiter is on a mission to study the sun up close. The photos taken closest to the sun in July last year showed unknown so far “campfires“On the surface of our star, uncovering stellar processes only dreamed of in theory.
The probe also studies the conditions in the immediate vicinity, namely the solar wind, or charged particles, flowing in from the sun space. The resulting data will help scientists predict bad space weather that could be harmful communication and technology on Earth.