FP TrendingJul 22, 2020 08:58:31 IST

Tofill the massive gaps in our understanding of the Sun, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) launched the Solar Orbiter mission on 9 February 2020.

The spacecraft completed its first close pass of the Sun in mid-June and the first images from it havenow been released, including the closest pictures ever taken of the Sun.

"These amazing images will help scientists piece together the Suns atmospheric layers, which is important for understanding how it drives space weather near the Earth and throughout the solar system," said Holly Gilbert, NASA project scientist for the mission at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

'Campfires' spotted by the Solar Orbiter are annotated with white arrows. Image: NASA/ESA

At the time the images were captured, the spacecraft wasjust 77 million km away from the Sun,Science Dailyreported.

An instrument called the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI)on the Solar Orbiter captured this first image, showing "campfires" during itsfirst perihelion theposition ofthe spacecraft in its elliptical orbit where itmakes itsclosest approach to the Sun.

"The campfires are little relatives of solar flares that we can observe from Earth, million or billion times smaller," Science Dailyquoted David Berghmans of the Royal Observatory of Belgium (ROB), Principal Investigator of the EUI instrument, as saying.

Berghmans also said that the Sun might look quiet at first glance, but those miniature flares can be observed everywhere when we look in detail.

The Solar Orbiter is returning its first science data, including images of the Sun taken from closer than any spacecraft in history. Image: NASA/ESA

Scientists areunsureif these campfires are just tiny versions of big flares or they are generated due to an entirely different mechanism that isn't yet known.

ESAs Solar Orbiter project scientist Daniel Mller said that they did not expect these results so early, adding that the photos show the spacecraft is "off to an excellent start."

According toEurekAlert,the coronaviruspandemicthrew multiple challenges to the mission.It led to theshut downof mission control at the European Space Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany, forovera week.Owing to the COVID-19 situation, teams involved in the mission also had to perform some critical operations remotely.

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NASA-ESA Solar Orbiter mission spots 'campfires' in closest images ever taken of the Sun - Firstpost