Solar Orbiter, the spacecraft that first looked at the Sun's polar regions

Background

Solar Orbiter is an ESA spacecraft sent to watch the Sun from closer than any craft before it. ESA calls it the most complex scientific laboratory ever sent to the Sun, and it is the first to look at the Sun's polar regions, which cannot be seen from the plane in which the planets move. It carries ten science instruments, some looking straight at the Sun and others measuring the gas and magnetism that flow past the craft. At its nearest it comes within 42 million kilometres of the Sun, and it climbs to about 33 degrees above the solar equator. It left Earth in February 2020, returned its first images in July 2020 and began routine science in November 2021. The questions set for it are what drives the Sun's 11-year cycle of activity, what heats the corona to millions of degrees, and how the solar wind forms and speeds up. Those answers matter on Earth, because the same solar wind drives the storms that disturb satellites and power lines.