NASA’s spacecraft named Ulysses has shown a closest glimpse of the Sun.
The spacecraft was launched on October 6, 1990 and last week it was directly over the south pole of Sun.
Researchers who are closely monitoring the spacecraft mentioned that Sun’s South Pole is an uncharted territory that cannot be seen from Earth and most other sun-studying spacecrafts have been studying the equator of the star.
Ulysses will remain in the same region for about the next four months. Last Thursday it was closest to the south pole of the Sun.
Ulysses has been providing the astronomers with some stunning facts about the only star of the solar system from the past 16 years and all that information have led to a better understanding of the Sun’s environment.
Researchers also stated that both the Sun’s and the Earth’s magnetic poles are constantly on the move and occasionally they flip their places. Sun flips the poles once every 11 years and the same happens on Earth every 300,000 years.
Studying the polar magnetic field of the Sun may give some information about the magnetic field of our own planet.
The spacecraft is also collecting some vital information about the holes over the poles of the Sun. These holes are called ‘Coronal Holes‘ and these are the regions from which the Solar wind escapes the gravity of Sun.
After this flyby Ulysses will reach the North Pole of Sun in spring 2008 and eventually the spacecraft will be abandoned in a cosmic junkyard when its internal batteries fail.
Via: space
