[HN Gopher] Solar Orbiter gets world-first views of the Sun's poles
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Solar Orbiter gets world-first views of the Sun's poles
Author : sohkamyung
Score : 156 points
Date : 2025-06-11 23:00 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.esa.int)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.esa.int)
| superkuh wrote:
| This slightly tilted view of the poles is a teaser. I didn't know
| they'd managed to incorporate late in the mission gravity assists
| into the cheaper plan B to slightly tweak out of the ecliptic
| while dropping close to the sun. That's pretty cool.
| https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Animatio...
|
| But we could've had so much more. The original proposal A for the
| ESA Solar Orbiter was a highly inclined orbit relative to the
| ecliptic plane to truly get full polar views of the sun. But this
| was too expensive. So they went with the cheaper proposal B which
| was mostly just a spectroscopic platform. Similar to SDO AIA,
| except in a solar orbit (almost completely within the ecliptic
| plane) instead of SDO AIA's Earth based sun synchronous orbit.
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| I suppose it takes a lot of deltaV to get a stable orbit over
| the sun poles?
| ChocolateGod wrote:
| You'd need to completely cancel out the rotation of the solar
| system, far beyond what we have the technology to do.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| They plan to get a more polar orbit each time they get close to
| Venus:
| https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2020/01/Solar_Orbi...
|
| Not sure if 33deg angle in 2029 is the final "polarity" or if
| they'll keep tilting after that.
| widforss wrote:
| Wouldn't the tilt affect the gravity assist of Venus?
| zamadatix wrote:
| The planning of sure, you've gotta make sure you're
| crossing the plane at the time, but gravity assist itself
| is otherwise the same though.
| widforss wrote:
| At the time, every time, and the position of Venus
| changes with every orbit. But I guess the folks at ESA
| are proficient in math.
| labster wrote:
| Instead of knowing math, they might just ask an LLM to
| work out the right orbit.
| lionkor wrote:
| Looks like they dont, seeing how it hasn't crashed and
| burnt horribly
| NooneAtAll3 wrote:
| you linked Parker probe, not Solar Orbiter
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Dambit. No hexagons. I think i might have lost an old bet.
| tickerticker wrote:
| LOL
| svachalek wrote:
| Ha. I wonder what solar scientists were expecting here, how
| surprising would it have been if the sun did have polygonal
| storms like the gas giants?
| lostlogin wrote:
| 'World First' is a poor choice of words. 'First Ever'?
| riffraff wrote:
| well, they are the first time they're seen on this world so I
| think it's fine.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| There was a previous mission (Ulysses aka International Solar
| Polar mission) that sent back a lot of data but for whatever
| reason, they didn't have it send visual images. Big bright ball
| = no surprise, maybe.
| lionkor wrote:
| It's our world's first -- maybe the others already got it.
|
| Or better, "humanity's first".
| colordrops wrote:
| I love this, seems so minor if not paying attention but it's
| absolutely mind blowing. Getting a view we never saw of the life
| giver, an object that used to be revered as a god, nearly every
| human alive I history has basked in it's light and heat, and the
| for the first time we are seeing it in full
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(page generated 2025-06-14 23:00 UTC)