On January 3 , 2023,Solar Orbiterwitnessed a transit of Mercury . The smallest and inmost major planet of our solar system of rules was in front of the Sun from the advantage point of the infinite mission , which is a collaboration between the European Space Agency and NASA . Researchers used the opportunity to check all the instrumentation on board .
Mercury is starkly dark against the solar disc , so an ideal pawn should n’t get any signals from it . However , the veridical ones on Solar Orbiter do , and the team can employ these to assess a amount known as the point overspread function . The serious this is known , the comfortably the data scientist can get from Solar Orbiter .
“ It is a certified black object travelling through your field of view , ” Daniel Müller , Solar Orbiter Project Scientist at ESA , say in astatement .
The planet Mercury can be seen move (middle to left) across the solar disk. Image Credit: ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/PHI Team
The Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager ( PHI ) photograph Mercury moving across the Sun . The Extreme Ultraviolet Imager ( EUI ) saw it moving beyond the disk , and across the plasma in the solar atmosphere . The Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment ( SPICE ) , looked at four specific wavelengths of the Sun , which traverse different elements ( Ne , carbon , hydrogen , and oxygen ) at different berth in the ambiance .
“ It ’s not just looking at Mercury take place in front of the Sun , but pass in front of the dissimilar layers of the atmosphere , ” explains Dr Miho Janvier , Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale , France , the SPICE lieutenant project scientist who is presently on secondment to ESA .
Solar Orbiter continues to do awe-inspiring skill and will be the first mission to finally observethe polar regionsof the Sun .
