Scientists at the European Space Agency used a laser to communicate with a spacecraft 165 million miles (265 million kilometers) away in deep space for the first time, marking a major step forward in their efforts to build optical communication systems for future missions to the Moon and beyond. Scientists at the Kryoneri Observatory near […]
Solar Orbiter Captures First Clear Views of Sun’s South Pole—and It’s a Hot Mess
For more than 60 years, various spacecraft and telescopes have journeyed through space to stare at the Sun, capturing haunting images of the giant ball of hot gas at the heart of our solar system. Our view of the star is limited, however, by Earth’s orbital plane, which allows us to observe the Sun’s equator […]
This Is the Highest-Resolution Portrait of the Sun We’ve Ever Seen
Five years into its mission, NASA and ESA’s Solar Orbiter just snapped what might be the crispest, most detailed full-Sun view humanity has ever seen. The shot above—in all its mesmerizing, dull-yellow grandeur—captures our Sun’s million-degree corona in ultraviolet light. Taken on March 9, 2025, from about 47.8 million miles (77 million kilometers) away, this […]
Wild Video Shows Solar Winds Spiraling Millions of Miles From the Sun
Behold, the piping host particles of solar wind streaming from our Sun, caught in new footage from the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter. The video was captured by the orbiter’s Metis instrument, a coronagraph which blocks light directly from the Sun in order to see fainter phenomena in its outer atmosphere, or corona. New research describing the […]
Solar Orbiter Captures Incredible Footage of Tiny Jets Near the Sun’s South Pole
For nearly five years, a Sun-observing probe has been making close approaches to the Sun, capturing close-up views of the star’s polar regions to collect clues about its magnetic activity, corona, and atmosphere. During two recent flybys, Solar Orbiter spotted tiny jets of material that appear as thin, hair-like strands brightly flashing near the Sun’s […]
Einstein Probe Detects Mysterious Blast of X-Rays From the Early Universe
On March 15, 2024, a space-based observatory detected bursts of low-energy X-rays from deep in the ancient universe, fluctuating in brightness for over 17 minutes before fading away. About an hour later, ground-based telescopes picked up visible light from the same source, tracing it back to when the universe was only around one billion years […]