The Solar Orbiter spacecraft is to lift off from a Florida launch pad today at 11:03pm and autonomously unfold an array of solar panels and antennas before carrying on toward the sun for a 10-year mission mapping its polar regions. Mapping the sun’s poles could allow scientists for the first time to observe the concentrated source of solar wind — a stream of plasma and charged particles that beam outward and sustains the solar system’s protective outer bubble that breathes in and out in harmony with the solar wind. “Where did that plasma, the solar wind come from? Scientists are also expected to learn how space weather wreaks havoc on satellites and electronics on and around Earth. In 2018, NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe to journey closer to the sun than any other human-made object, 6.1 million kilometers, and find out how the sun churns space weather in our solar system.

Source: Taipei Times February 08, 2020 15:56 UTC