Solar Orbiter sends back first live observations from the Sun’s south pole

Starry Poles: Launched from Cape Canaveral five years ago, the Solar Orbiter has steadily delivered stunning insights about our star. Its latest achievement – a first-ever glimpse of the Sun’s polar region – marks another leap forward, and researchers believe the most important discoveries are still to come.

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 to understanding the star’s inner workings and, according to the European Space Agency, may help scientists better predict solar activity in the future.

Launched in February 2020, SolO represents a key scientific partnership between ESA and NASA. It captures detailed observations of the Sun’s inner heliosphere, solar wind, and polar regions. Unlike planets and Earth-based instruments, which view mainly the Sun’s equatorial zone, SolO travels on a tilted orbit that offers a unique vantage point of the star’s poles.

Building on its unique trajectory, SolO entered the “high latitude” phase of its mission in February, tilting its orbit to 17 degrees relative to the Sun’s equator. This shift allowed the orbiter’s scientific instruments to explore the south pole, an area Max Planck Institute professor Sami Solanki calls “terra incognita” – unknown land – for humanity so far.

SolO’s instruments observed the Sun across different wavelengths, analyzing solar radiation and magnetic fields. Typically, a magnet has clearly defined north and south poles. However, the Sun’s south pole exhibits a “messy” magnetism, with both north and south polarity fields present.

The ESA explained that messy magnetism can develop quickly during each solar cycle. Within five to six years, the Sun will reach a new “solar minimum,” when the magnetic field should return to mostly normal behavior. The researchers note that the exact cause of this erratic activity remains unknown and say more observations are needed to understand the phenomenon.

Another interesting discovery came from SPICE, SolO’s imaging spectrograph that detects wavelengths linked to emissions from specific chemical elements at known temperatures. The instrument captured the first Doppler measurement of the Sun’s south pole, allowing researchers to map the movement of solar material between layers of the star’s atmosphere. Doppler measurements help reveal how particles escape the Sun’s atmosphere with the solar wind, a primary focus of the mission.

Researchers expect new data from SolO’s polar observations to arrive in the coming months, promising fresh insights into the Sun’s complex behavior. The mission team plans to conclude the orbiter’s work by 2030, but scientists anticipate its legacy will shape solar research and space weather prediction for years to come.