Spacecraft snaps closest pictures of sun, 'campfires' abound
The Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) on ESA's Solar Orbiter spacecraft took this image on 30 May 2020. During an online press briefing with Solar Orbiter mission experts, the first images from ESA's new Sun-observing spacecraft were released on Thursday. NASAs Parker Solar Probe is flying much closer to the sun than Solar Orbiter too close for cameras to safely photograph the sun. These so-called campfires, Berghmans noted, are literally everywhere we look. Not yet well understood, they could be mini explosions, or nanoflares. This is just the beginning of the long epic journey of Solar Orbiter, Muller said.