Solar Orbiter: Answering the big questions

Solar Orbiter will address big questions in space science to help us understand how our star creates and controls the giant bubble of plasma – the heliosphere – that surrounds the whole Solar System and influences the planets within it. It will concentrate on four main areas of investigation; very broadly:

• Solar wind: What drives the solar wind and the acceleration of solar wind particles?
• Polar regions: What happens in the polar regions when the solar magnetic field flips polarity?
• Magnetic field: How is magnetic field generated inside the Sun and how does it propagate through the Sun’s atmosphere and outwards into space?
• Space weather: How do sudden events like flares and coronal mass ejections impact the Solar System, and how do solar eruptions produce the energetic particles that lead to extreme space weather at Earth?

Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA.