We really live on the cusp of a remarkable new era of space exploration, with SpaceX rockets moving almost every month and international probes spread across the Milky Way capturing wonderful images of asteroids, comets, planets, moons and our own bright Sun.
With all the activity and media coverage of these spacecraft and probes, it’s easy to become complacent or apathetic about the data and photos their missions provide to Earth. So let’s pause for a moment and look at the sky these wonderful new images from NASA / ESA’s solar orbiter as it traverses our solar system studying our home star.
The new video material below, along with a series of photos, shows some incredibly rare cosmic countertops from Earth, Mars and Venus, with the faint light of Uranus also winking at us from beyond.
These inspiring images were obtained on November 18, 2020 with the SoloHI camera installed aboard Solar Orbiter. Venus (left), Earth (middle) and Mars (right) are clearly visible in the foreground, with a tapestry of bright stars in the background, all captured as the spacecraft orbits the Sun. Eagle-eyed astronomers also noted that Uranus shares the stage near the bottom edge.
“Solar Orbiter is the most complex scientific laboratory ever built to study the Sun and the solar wind, taking images of our star closer than any other spacecraft,” ESA researchers noted. “The Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) is one of six remote sensing instruments on board the mission. During the cruise phase, they are still being calibrated for specific periods, but otherwise they will go off. “
Venus, Earth and Mars move slightly in the field of view of the SoloHI instrument. Venus is the brightest object seen, located about 30 million kilometers away from the Solar Orbiter. When the shots were fired that day, the distance to Earth was 156 million miles and 206 million miles to Mars. Uranus Lighthouse is a simple point located next to the official time code.
“At the time of recording, Solar Orbiter was on its way to Venus to make its first gravitational overflight, which happened on December 27,” ESA scientists explained. “Flying Venus and Earth will bring the spacecraft closer to the Sun and tilt its orbit in order to observe our star from different perspectives.”