Artwork inspired by Solar Orbiter

Artist Melanie King has reimagined representations of the scientific instruments aboard the Solar Orbiter spacecraft, painted using light-sensitive chemicals and illuminated with ultraviolet light. She created the work in collaboration with Lucie Green, a professor of physics at University College London who is involved with Solar Orbiter. Solar Orbiter is an ESA-led mission to capture solar images from closer than any spacecraft ever before and, for the first time, examine the Sun’s uncharted polar regions. Launched in February 2020, it is due to start scientific operations in November and to approach as close as 42 million kilometres to our nearest star.