Solar Orbiter delivers first clear look at the Sun's poles from deep space

Solar Orbiter delivers first clear look at the Sun's poles from deep space
by Erica Marchand
Paris, France (SPX) Jun 12, 2025

Thanks to a newly inclined orbit, ESA's Solar Orbiter spacecraft has captured the first-ever images of the Sun's poles taken from outside the ecliptic plane. This novel vantage point marks a breakthrough in solar research, offering new insights into the Sun's magnetic field, solar cycles, and space weather dynamics.

Historically, solar imaging has been confined to the ecliptic plane-where Earth and all major spacecraft orbit the Sun-limiting views to the solar equator. Now, Solar Orbiter's tilted path offers a unique look at the Sun from a steep angle, providing unprecedented visual access to the poles.

A comparison between Earth-based and spacecraft imagery from March 23, 2025, highlights the advantage: Solar Orbiter viewed the Sun from 17 degrees below the equator, offering a direct line of sight to the south pole. ESA plans to gradually tilt the spacecraft's orbit further, promising even sharper future observations.

"Today we reveal humankind's first-ever views of the Sun's pole," said Prof. Carole Mundell, ESA's Director of Science. "The Sun is our nearest star, giver of life and potential disruptor of modern space and ground power systems, so it is imperative that we understand how it works and learn to predict its behaviour. These new unique views from our Solar Orbiter mission are the beginning of a new era of solar science."

On March 16-17, 2025, Solar Orbiter carried out its first high-latitude observation campaign from 15 degrees below the equator. The images, gathered by three onboard instruments-PHI, EUI, and SPICE-offer distinct layers of information. PHI observes in visible light and detects surface magnetism, EUI captures ultraviolet emissions from the million-degree corona, and SPICE identifies different temperature layers by isolating light from various chemical elements.

"We didn't know what exactly to expect from these first observations - the Sun's poles are literally terra incognita," said Prof. Sami Solanki of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, who leads the PHI instrument team.

By combining outputs from these instruments, scientists can trace the movement of plasma and detect phenomena like polar vortices-swirling structures akin to those on Saturn and Venus. These findings also provide clues about the Sun's magnetic polarity reversal, which peaks every 11 years with heightened solar activity.

Initial data from PHI reveals a turbulent magnetic field at the Sun's south pole. Both north and south polarities are present-typical of solar maximum, when the magnetic field is flipping. This mixed pattern will eventually consolidate into a dominant polarity as the Sun moves toward its next minimum in about six years.

PHI's global magnetic map shows two prominent magnetic belts straddling the equator and red-blue patchwork at the poles, reflecting the dynamic, small-scale complexity of the magnetic environment.

Meanwhile, SPICE has achieved another milestone: its first Doppler measurements of solar material velocity. By analyzing shifts in spectral lines, SPICE has mapped the speed and direction of carbon ions in the Sun's transition region-where temperatures spike from 10,000 to hundreds of thousands of degrees Celsius.

One image shows clumps of carbon ions; another reveals their velocity, with red and blue areas indicating movement away from and toward the spacecraft, respectively. These data help track solar wind formation, a cornerstone of Solar Orbiter's mission.

"Doppler measurements of solar wind setting off from the Sun by current and past space missions have been hampered by the grazing view of the solar poles. Measurements from high latitudes, now possible with Solar Orbiter, will be a revolution in solar physics," explained Frederic Auchere of the University of Paris-Saclay, who leads the SPICE team.

ESA expects to receive the complete dataset from Solar Orbiter's first full polar orbit by October 2025. With ten instruments operating in tandem, the mission is poised to transform our understanding of solar dynamics for years to come.

"This is just the first step of Solar Orbiter's 'stairway to heaven': in the coming years, the spacecraft will climb further out of the ecliptic plane for ever better views of the Sun's polar regions. These data will transform our understanding of the Sun's magnetic field, the solar wind, and solar activity," said ESA project scientist Daniel Muller.