Solar Orbiter Captures First Clear Views of Sun’s South Pole—and It’s a Hot Mess
For more than 60 years, various spacecraft and telescopes have journeyed through space to stare at the Sun, capturing haunting images of the giant ball of hot gas at the heart of our solar system. Our view of the star is limited, however, by Earth’s orbital plane, which allows us to observe the Sun’s equator head-on while its polar regions remain in a frustrating blind spot. Solar Orbiter is now the first to image the poles from outside the ecliptic plane, offering a rare look at its chaotic mag