Home - Solar Orbiter

Welcome to ESA's Solar Orbiter Website for the Scientific Community

News alert: on 18 February 2025, Solar Orbiter completed a successful Venus Gravity Assist Maneuver, bringing the mission to its high latitude science phase. The spacecraft's orbit tilt will reach ~17º heliographic latitude.

News alert: Solar Orbiter's upcoming Remote-Sensing Windows (RSWs) observations will take place between 11 March 2025 – 25 April 2025.

News and Highlights

Science Nugget: Assessment of the near Sun axial magnetic field of the 10 March 2022 CME observed by Solar Orbiter from active region helicity budget

26 February 2025

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are energetic eruptions of plasma and magnetic fields from the solar atmosphere (Forbes 2000; Chen 2011; Webb and Howard 2012). Understanding the near-Sun magnetic field strength of CMEs is crucial as it plays a key role in shaping the early evolution of CME dynamics and their potential geoeffectiveness. However,... read more

Science Nugget: Rotational motions and signatures of the Alfvén waves in a fan spine topology

19 February 2025

Alfvén waves are of significant interest in the coronal heating problem due to their ability to transport energy from the lower layers of the Sun’s atmosphere to the corona [1]. However, their detection remains challenging because they are essentially rotational perturbations in plasma velocity and azimuthal components of the magnetic field,... read more

Solar Orbiter ready for close encounter with Venus

18 February 2025

The European Space Agency (ESA) is ready to guide the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft through its closest encounter with Venus so far.

Today’s flyby will be the first to significantly ‘tilt’ the spacecraft’s orbit and allow it to see the... read more

Science Nugget: ‘Sun’day everyday: 2 years of Solar Orbiter Science nuggets that shed light on some of our star’s mysteries

12 February 2025

Almost two years ago, and after a year since the start of the nominal science phase, we introduced the Solar Orbiter science nuggets to the solar and space science communities. These are short articles based on a topic related to the use of Solar Orbiter data and answering some of the fundamental questions in solar and space physics.

Project Scientist at ESA (with Solar Orbiter) now advertised

11 February 2025

The European Space Agency maintains a world-leading Science programme spanning heliophysics, planetary science, astrophysics and fundamental physics. As Project Scientist, you will initially be assigned to the Solar Orbiter mission and report to the Head of the Solar System Section in the Science Engagement and Oversight Office (SCI-E) of... read more

Celebrating Solar Orbiter and the women behind the mission

11 February 2025

Behind every successful ESA space mission, there is at least one woman. Behind the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission, there are hundreds of them. With this mosaic, in light of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we are celebrating some of the... read more

Scientists spot tiny Sun jets driving fast and slow solar wind

5 February 2025

Back in 2023, we reported on Solar Orbiter’s discovery of tiny jets near the Sun’s south pole that could be powering the solar wind. The team behind this research has now... read more

Science Nugget: Velocity field in the solar granulation from two vantage points

22 January 2025

In the solar photosphere, a bright cell pattern called granules are surrounded by a dark channel called intergranular lanes [1]. A granule is a manifestation of an overshooting of a hot upflow from the convectively unstable subsurface layers into the stable photosphere. This vigorous convective process results in generating dynamical... read more

Science Nugget: First joint X-ray solar microflare observations with NuSTAR and Solar Orbiter/STIX

15 January 2025

Hard X-rays (HXR) serve as an important diagnostic for plasma heating and particle acceleration. Therefore, they are crucial for studying flare energy release processes, which are not fully understood. Microflares (GOES B class and smaller flares) are good candidates for studying these processes as they occur more frequently and usually with... read more