Solar Orbiter: New photos show the Sun as you've never seen it before
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Brand new images released by the European Space Agency (ESA) have captured the Sun's surface in a new level of detail.
They show the Sun as having a fluffy texture, with eruptions and gases being released into its atmosphere.
The pictures were taken from a video shot back in September by the Solar Orbiter, a special probe that's been sent to learn more about the star at the centre of our solar system.
Scientists have released a clip of the Sun's surface, using data collected by Nasa's Parker Solar Probe, to provide more detail about what's going on.
The image was taken with ultraviolet technology
The lace-like structure on the sun's surface is called coronal 'moss', which creates a delicate pattern on the image.
There's also eruptions of gas which are larger than the size of the Earth itself!
The Solar Orbiter may have captured the closest-ever pictures of the Sun, but it's still fairly far away...
WATCH: De-Graft tells you all you need to know about the Solar Orbiter (from February 2020)
The nearest it got to the Sun was at a distance of 43 million km (26.7 million miles) away.
The probe has been built to withstand extremely hot temperatures, with the brightest parts of the image reaching up to 1,000,000 degrees Celsius!
- Published10 February 2020
- Published3 May
- Published3 October 2014
