2mo ago

See the First-Ever Direct Images of the Sun's South Pole, Captured by the Solar Orbiter Spacecraft

www.smithsonianmag.com

Just a moment...

2mo ago

www.smithsonianmag.com /smart-news/see-the-first-ever-direct-images-of-the-suns-south-pole-captured-by-the-solar-orbiter-spacecraft-180986788/

21 comments

It looks like this: *
Why is it only now that I realize Ive only seen the poles of 1 planet and 1 pole of the sun. I really want to see the other 7 planets and Pluto now
- Check out Saturn's poles, it's got a bestagon
  
  Thats fucking awesome, thank you
  
  Is there a known regular hexagon larger than the one on Saturn?
  
  This might be a stupid question, but is there 1 giant storm through the planet?
- It's sad to say but we may never see Pluto again, at least in high definition.
  
  Why not?
This feels like the sun has been upskirted
Is it orangey yellow? I bet it's orangey yellow.
- I'll let you know in a few minutes after this big black dot goes away from my vision.
  
  How you doin? Still got the dot?
- Our sun is actually white with a very slight green tinge. The yellow orange thing is an effect of our atmosphere.
  
  and there are purple stars, but humans cant see those wavelengths.
Hold up, the Ulysses probe didn't take any pictures of the Sun's poles? Or did it not carry a camera?
- Or did it not carry a camera?
  It did not:
  All pre-existing images of the sun were taken from within about 7 degrees of its equator. That’s because every spacecraft orbiting the star, along with every planet in our solar system, swoops around the sun in a flat disk called the ecliptic plane, which is tilted just 7.25 degrees relative to the sun’s equatorial plane. (The Ulysses spacecraft is the only one to have passed over the sun’s poles, but it didn’t have a camera.)
I was expecting to see something interesting, akin to the colossal-sized hexagonal storm that ominously drapes across the entire polar region of Saturn, but seeing the images of the sun's poles, I realize it's hard to look at an eternal enormous explosion that has existed before the solar system was a twinkle in God's ballsack.

21 comments