Although the distance between the sun and the earth varies due to the elliptical orbit, the mean 149 million 597 thousand 870 kilometers and this distance is called as unit AU. It takes 8 minutes for a ray from the sun to travel this distance at the speed of light to reach Earth.

Sent by the European Space Agency on February 10, 2020, the Solar Orbiter vehicle has managed to cover much of that horrific distance — some 101 million kilometers — despite rising temperatures along the way. Although Solar Orbiter sounds like a long distance to the human ear, it is 30 million miles from our star. In other words 3 times closer to the sun than the earth side by side with the planet Mercury.

Images shot from such a distance with state-of-the-art equipment are also astonishing, and it gets even more serious the closer you get:

Temperature at Solar Orbiter site 500 degrees† Because it will be closer to the sun in the near future, it can withstand higher temperatures. The main purpose of the tool is to capture images that allow us to understand what is happening at the sun’s magnetic fields and poles.

You may have heard of solar storms that strike the Earth from time to time… These storms can even become so violent that they disable the entire communication system on Earth:

In the video above The wind released by a gigantic explosion in the sun, you see how this wind dissipates energy. To understand how and when those solar storms will occur, it is necessary to first see the poles of the sun, that is, the places where the magnetic fields are concentrated. However, research to date is not sufficient. Little is known about the sun’s poles and can only be estimated by a series of calculations.

The circle labeled “Earth to Scale” in the video below shows the size of the Earth. From here, think of the size of the firestorms…

The place you see is the south pole of the sun. occurring only at the poles of the star “hedgehog” meaning “kerpie” with its unofficial Turkish name You saw how the storms called

It’s pretty obvious why these storms are called “hedgehogs”…

You can clearly see the fiery arms stretching out like thorns on a hedgehog. Why or how they form is unknown. Distant physicists investigating the sun are trying to shed light on the subject using these images.

Around the sun is a “shield” called the heliosphere, which includes 8 planets, including Earth, and Pluto:

In this shield all matter and energy It is estimated that it originated from the sun and that the ideal living environment on Earth provides continuity through this shield. On the other hand, the winds and storms caused by these explosions are of a level that can threaten life on Earth.

Designed to understand the nature of solar flares solar orbiter According to planned studies, the vehicle will be 14 times closer to the sun by 2030. These convergences will occur from distances of 48 million kilometers where the above videos were recorded to smaller distances.

Sources: ScienceAlert, European Space Agency (YouTube)