Solar Orbiter

SpaceX is set to launch a Falcon 9 in the next couple of days from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, carrying the Starlink Internet Satellites mission.

Solar Orbiter tracks origin of mysterious magnetic switchbacks.

The European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter spacecraft has flown through an S-shaped kink, known as a switchback, in the solar wind's magnetic field.

One of the many asteroids in our neighborhood, 2019 SD8, swings by today.

Comparable to a city bus, it'll pass about 18 lunar distances from Earth.

But we keep going closer, and there are still two spacecraft ahead of us.

The two of them are Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe.

Solar Orbiter is a big deal because it took the first ever pictures of the sun's south pole.

For scale, here's how big the Earth would be in this video.

But only one spacecraft has ever gone into the sun's inner atmosphere.

'Cause we don't understand that connection.

And then you've got, like, the Solar Orbiter looking at the south pole of the sun.

Oh, Parker Solar, it's like-

That's NASA.

Parker is NASA.

Oh, you guys-

But then the Solar Orbiter is ESA.

Right.

We're just going to have to pay attention to what's going on on this limb here.

But sadly, Solar Orbiter is not in the position for us to see the far side of the sun from the east limb, which is up here in this part of the orbit circle here.

So we're just going to have to kind of rely on JSOC, HMI, helioseismology, farsighted viewing for that right now.

And right now, it just looks like most of the activity is on the east limb.

Do you want to know what happened in space? There wasn't a ton, but there's some important ones.

In February, Solar Orbiter launches.

You don't really know much about this one.

This was a joint ESA-NASA mission in that order.