In June 2020, the ESA's Solar Orbiter (SolO) mission launched and became the closest mission ever to orbit the Sun and take images of its surface. In March 2025, the mission made history by becoming the first probe to acquire images of the Sun's polar regions. Until now, all missions have taken images of the Sun's equatorial region because it corresponded to their orbits around the ecliptic plane. But thanks to the Solar Orbiter spacecraft's tilted orbit, it was able to observe the Sun from a whole new perspective.
The ESA released an image (at top) that shows a magnetic field map of the Sun's south pole. The image was taken by the Solar Orbiter's Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (PHI) instrument while viewing the Sun from an angle of 17° below the equator, which was enough to directly see the Sun’s south pole. The blue sections indicate a positive magnetic field, pointing towards the spacecraft, while red indicates a negative magnetic field. These patches indicate that the Sun’s magnetic field (on small scales) has a complex and ever-changing structure.
This only happens briefly during each solar cycle when the Sun is at solar maximum, when the Sun's magnetic field flips and reaches its most active state. This is followed by a cooldown period where the poles slowly become a singular polarity. In 5 to 6 years, the Sun will reach its solar minimum, where the Sun and its magnetic field will experience their lowest activity levels. During its seven-year (nominal) mission, the spacecraft will tilt its orbit further to provide even greater views of the polar regions.
As Prof. Carole Mundell, ESA's Director of Science, said in an ESA press release:
Today we reveal humankind’s first-ever views of the Sun’s pole. The Sun is our nearest star, giver of life and potential disruptor of modern space and ground power systems, so it is imperative that we understand how it works and learn to predict its behaviour. These new unique views from our Solar Orbiter mission are the beginning of a new era of solar science.
Images taken with the spacecraft's Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument were also used to create a video (shown above) of the Sun's south pole. The video begins around the solar equator (i.e., as we see it from Earth), then transitions to the SoLo's tilted view to peek at the polar region. During each orbit, the spacecraft moves from +17 to -17° around the equator to observe the northern and southern poles and the Sun's entire face. In addition to the PHI, and EUI, the spacecraft's advanced suite also includes the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument.
While the PHI images the Sun in visible light and maps the Sun’s surface magnetic field, the EUI images the Sun in ultraviolet (UV) to reveal the charged gas in the Sun’s corona, and SPICE reveals the different layers of the corona by capturing temperature differences in these gases. By comparing observations with these three instruments, scientists can learn more about how material moves in the Sun's atmosphere. These instruments work together to reveal how material moves in the Sun's atmosphere (corona), which is key to understanding its magnetic field and why it flips roughly every 11 years.
Said Prof. Sami Solanki, who leads the PHI instrument team from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS):
We didn’t know what exactly to expect from these first observations – the Sun’s poles are literally terra incognita. How exactly this build-up occurs is still not fully understood, so Solar Orbiter has reached high latitudes at just the right time to follow the whole process from its unique and advantageous perspective.
Current models and predictions of the solar cycle are insufficient to predict when and how the Sun will reach its most active state. These observations will, therefore, enhance our ability to predict and prepare for major events, such as Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and powerful solar flares that can disrupt satellite communications, power grids, and missions in Low-Earth Orbit (LEO). One of the first findings from the SoLo mission's polar observations is that around the south pole, the Sun's magnetic field is a mess of polarities. Whereas normal magnets have two clear poles (north and south), the magnetic field measurements of the south pole show both polarities at work.
SoLo's observations also reveal that the strongest parts of the Sun's magnetic field are found in two bands on either side of the equator. These can be seen in sunspots on the Sun's surface (photosphere), where the magnetic field becomes concentrated. Lastly, the SPICE instrument has spent the past five years providing spectral observations to determine the chemical composition of the different layers in the corona. In another first, the SPICE team used Doppler measurements to track spectral lines in the Sun's atmosphere to measure how fast clumps of solar material are moving, which could fulfill one of SoLo's main objectives - improving our understanding of how charged particles are released by the Sun (solar wind).
“Doppler measurements of solar wind setting off from the Sun by current and past space missions have been hampered by the grazing view of the solar poles," said Frédéric Auchère, the SPICE team leader from the University of Paris-Saclay. "Measurements from high latitudes, now possible with Solar Orbiter, will be a revolution in solar physics."
These observations are the first made from the spacecraft's newly inclined orbit. Much of this first dataset is awaiting further analysis, and the complete dataset of its first full "pole-to-pole" flight is expected by October 2025. The mission team anticipates that SoLo's scientific instruments will gather tremendous amounts of data that will trigger additional breakthroughs in our understand of the Sun.
“This is just the first step of Solar Orbiter's 'stairway to heaven': in the coming years, the spacecraft will climb further out of the ecliptic plane for ever better views of the Sun's polar regions," added Daniel Müller, one of SoLo's project scientists. "These data will transform our understanding of the Sun’s magnetic field, the solar wind, and solar activity."