Set the controls for the heart of THE SUN
On 5 February, Just before midnight local time, an Atlas 5 rocket blasted off from Cape Kennedy in Florida carrying the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter – one of the most ambitious spacecraft ever launched.
The aim of the mission is to study the heliosphere, the bubble in space carved out by the solar wind – the stream of charged particles that constantly flows away from the Sun. The heliosphere is vast. It envelops Earth and extends far beyond the orbit of Pluto.
It has far-reaching effects on all the Solar System’s planets but, as Lucie Green, one of the scientists working on the mission, explains, studying it means flying into the Solar System’s heart – into some of the most hostile environments ever encountered.
“What we want to do is get close to the Sun, so that we can measure material as it leaves the surface, before it’s been processed and before it evolves,” she
