\n<\/p>\n
Besides light, the Sun sends out particles in the form of\u00a0solar wind\u00a0and in large bursts called\u00a0coronal mass ejections. Understanding how these streams and bursts of particles get pushed out from the Sun could help improve our forecasts of\u00a0space weather\u00a0reaching Earth.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Recently, the European Space Agency\u2019s\u00a0Proba-3\u00a0mission\u00a0demonstrated\u00a0that it\u00a0filled the \u2018solar observation gap\u2019. It can see movement to unprecedented detail in the hard-to-observe region between the Sun\u2019s surface and higher up in its outer atmosphere (the corona). This makes it\u00a0possible to closely track\u00a0solar\u00a0wind\u00a0as it sets off from the inner corona.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This image is a still from a video. The\u00a0(artificially coloured)\u00a0yellow\u00a0part of the\u00a0video\u00a0shows the Sun\u00a0in ultraviolet light, recorded\u00a0by the\u00a0SWAP telescope on ESA’s\u00a0Proba-2\u00a0spacecraft. The greyscale area around it is based on data captured\u00a0in visible light by the ASPIICS coronagraph on\u00a0Proba-3.\u00a0This data is processed to enhance contrast.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the video, you can see flows of solar wind moving away from the Sun in all directions. In some regions, particularly around the bottom of the video, you can see some material also falling back towards the Sun. In the second half of the video, a coronal mass ejection expands towards the right.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n