The ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft made the first of its close perihelion passages on 26 March 2022. The spacecraft flew closer to the Sun than the inner planet Mercury, achieving its closest approach at just 32 percent of the Earth’s distance from the Sun. Being that close to the Sun, the images and data returned were spectacular.

These images were taken by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager on 27 March 2022, and show the Sun at a wavelength of 17 nanometers. This is the wavelength given off by gas at a temperature of around one million degrees, which corresponds to the temperature of the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona. This movie highlights that the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) takes both full disc images using the Full Sun Imager (FSI) telescope, and detailed images of a smaller region using the High Resolution Imager (HRI_EUV) telescope.

The movie first shows the full Sun, with magnetism reaching out from the Sun’s interior to trap bright loops of coronal gas. Next, the movie zooms in towards the region targeted by the HRI_EUV telescope, where smaller scale coronal loops can be seen.

The colour on this image has been artificially added because the original wavelength detected by the instrument is invisible to the human eye.