We’re really living near an amazing new era of space exploration, with SpaceX rockets going around almost every month and international explorers spreading out around the Milky Way. capture stunning images of our own asteroids, comets, planets, mountains, and bright sun.
With all the action and coverage in the media on these spaceships and probes, it ‘s easy to be complacent or skeptical about the data and images that their missions deliver back to Earth. So stop for a moment and look into the heavens at these brilliant new images from NASA / ESA ‘s Solar Orbiter as it traverses our solar system exploring our home star.
The new video below, along with a series of photos, shows a rare cosmic tabletop of Earth, Mars and Venus, with the faint light of Uranus waking us up from the outside.
These inspiring images were captured on November 18, 2020 by the SoloHI camera mounted on board the Solar Orbiter. Venus (left), Earth (center), and Mars (right) are clearly visible in the foreground, with a tapestry of bright stars in the background, all captured while the spacecraft travels. winding around the sun. Astronomers with eagle eyes also noted that Uranus divides the platform near the lower edge.
“Solar Orbiter is the most complex scientific laboratory ever built to study the Sun and solar eclipses, bringing images of our star closer than any spacecraft before, ”said ESA researchers. “The Heliospheric Solar Orbiter (SoloHI) Image is one of the six sensing instruments on board the mission. At the cruise level, these are still capitalized at certain times, but are turned off. ”
Venus, Earth, and Mars move slightly in the SoloHI instrument view. Venus is the brightest thing to see, going about 30 million miles away from the Solar Orbiter. When the photographs were taken that day, the distance to Earth was 156 million miles and 206 million miles to Mars. Far from Uranus there is only a dot next to the official time code.
“At the time of registration, Solar Orbiter was on its way to Venus for its first gravitational aid, which occurred on December 27,” explained ESA scientists. “Venus and Earth flybys will bring the spacecraft closer to the Sun and tighten its orbit to see our star from different perspectives. ”