New 83 Million Pixel Zoomable Image Of The Sun From Solar Orbiter

 

The Sun Seen By Solar Orbiter With The Earth In Top Right Corner For Comparison. Image Credit: ESA NASA

Infrared imaging of the Sun exposes the ever-changing structure of the solar corona, the Sun's upper atmosphere. Thanks to recent data from Solar Orbiter, this picture is now available in ultra-high definition.

 

Solar Orbiter took an image with about 83 million pixels in a 9148 x 9112-pixel grid from a distance of 75 million kilometres — nearly halfway between the Earth's orbit and the Sun. That's ten times the resolution of a 4K TV screen display.

 

The spacecraft took more than four hours to collect the photograph with the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI).

 

Here is a full-size zoomable image.

 

The SPICE instrument was analysing the different constituent components of the solar atmosphere, from the chromosphere to the corona, at the same time as the EUI observations. The temperatures of these layers vary, and ultraviolet light is emitted by various excited atoms.

 

Temperatures map of the different layers of the Sun. Image Credit: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/SPICE team; Data processing: G. Pelouze (IAS)

Purple represents hydrogen gas at 10,000°C (18,032°F), blue represents carbon at 32,000°C (57,632°F), green represents oxygen at 320,000°C (576,032°F), and yellow represents neon at 630,000°C (1,134,032°F) in the combined animation.

 

The observations were place on March 7th. The European Space Agency and NASA have collaborated on the Solar Orbiter project.