The magnetic fields that accelerate those particles flow into and out of the sun’s poles. The data from Solar Orbiter could help explain the sunspot cycle — Why does the cycle last 11 years? — and help models to predict solar storms that could disrupt Earth’s power grids and satellites in orbit. Ulysses, an earlier collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency launched in 1990, also passed over the sun’s poles, but at much farther distances, and it did not carry a camera. A long and winding journeyThe launch trajectory will take Solar Orbiter away from Earth into an orbit around the sun.

Source: New York Times February 09, 2020 16:52 UTC