Our star shines bright: the Solar Orbiter has captured stunning images of the Sun (photo).

The most remarkable and detailed photographs of the Sun have been captured by the cameras of the Solar Orbiter spacecraft. To date, there are no more impressive images of our star than those provided by the European Space Agency's probe. Solar Orbiter is equipped with the most advanced instruments for studying the Sun and has been sending crucial data about our home star back to Earth since 2020, according to New Scientist.

These images were taken by the Solar Orbiter when it was located 74 million kilometers from the Sun, which is nearly half the distance between our star and Earth.

The photograph shown below was captured using ultraviolet light. It displays the outer part of the Sun's atmosphere, known as the solar corona, in exquisite detail. The image reveals swirling plasma with temperatures reaching 1 million degrees Celsius, ejected along the Sun's magnetic field lines.

The intense brightness of the Sun's surface typically obscures the corona, making it visible only when the visible light is blocked. For instance, the solar corona can be seen during a solar eclipse. To obtain such a comprehensive image of the solar corona, scientists had to stitch together many small, magnified photographs.

The photograph below shows the surface, or photosphere, of the Sun in visible light, which is the light that humans can see with their eyes. The surface temperature of the Sun ranges from 4,500 to 6,000 degrees Celsius. Several dark spots are visible in the image; these are sunspots, where the plasma is cooler than the surrounding area, resulting in less light emission.

Using the Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager, the probe has illustrated what the Sun's magnetic field looks like. The image below shows that the magnetic field lines are concentrated in areas where sunspots are located. The magnetic field causes the movement of charged particles from these regions, leading to their cooling and giving them a darker appearance.

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft can also track the speed and direction of plasma movement across the Sun's surface. In the image below, the blue color indicates plasma moving toward the probe, while the red color shows plasma moving away from it. This representation illustrates that the plasma primarily rotates along with the Sun's rotation about its axis, but does not align with this movement in the sunspot regions.

These and other photographs aid scientists in better understanding the behavior of the Sun's corona and photosphere. In the near future, the Solar Orbiter is expected to capture images of the Sun's poles, which have never been seen before. Currently, astronomers do not have a clear understanding of the nature of the Sun's northern and southern poles, so they anticipate that these areas of our star will appear significantly different from other regions of the Sun.