Brighter Skies Ahead—As solar max approaches, new tech is on call

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https://eos.org/agu-news/brighter-skies-ahead

By Heather Goss, Eos/AGU. 

Excerpt: ...An impressive cadre of Sun-targeted missions has recently come online to replace or support an aging fleet of spacecraft, just as solar max is about to set in. ...In February 2020, Solar Orbiter launched from Florida, carrying 10 state-of-the-art instruments to make the closest ever observations of the Sun. Daniele Telloni and colleagues, in “A New Journey Around (and Around) the Sun,” describe for us “the groundbreaking observations that Solar Orbiter has made already,” such as the “short-lived, small-scale flickering bright spots, nicknamed ‘campfires,’ in the solar corona.” Not only will this joint European Space Agency–NASA mission shed new light on the unsolved mysteries of the Sun, but also it’s revealing a new side of Venus from its 2020 flyby. ...in our next feature, “Shake, Rattle, and Probe.” Helioseismology is a burgeoning discipline that allows physicists to better understand the structure of our star. ...“11 Discoveries Awaiting Us at Solar Max,” get excited about peering inside coronal mass ejections, creating “Sun to mud” predictions, and better understanding magnetic fields throughout our solar system.…

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