The European Space Agency-led spacecraft Solar Orbiter, which carries instruments designed and built at UCL, has captured the first ever images of the Sun’s south pole.
All previous images of the Sun were taken from overhead of the Sun’s equator. This is because Earth, the other planets, and spacecraft orbit the Sun within a flat disc called the ecliptic plane. Following a slingshot flyby of the planet Venus in February this year, Solar Orbiter has tilted out of this plane, revealing the Sun from a whole new angle.
This new viewing angle will help change our understanding of the Sun’s magnetic field, the solar cycle (an 11-year cycle of solar activity) and the workings of space weather.
The image in yellow is from Solar Orbiter’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), an instrument which UCL researchers and engineers helped design, build and support. The image was taken on 23 March 2025, when Solar Orbiter was viewing the Sun from an angle of 17° below the solar equator, enough to directly see the Sun’s south pole. Over the coming years, the spacecraft will tilt its orbit even further up to 33°, so the best views - of both the north and south poles - are yet to come.
Dr Hamish Reid (Mullard Space Science Laboratory at UCL), the UK Co-Principal Investigator for the EUI, said: "This is humanity’s first look at either of the poles of the Sun. All our previous images of the Sun have been taken face-on with the Sun’s equator.
"Spacecraft normally orbit the Sun on the flat disc called the ecliptic plane, just like most of the planets in our solar system. This is the most energy efficient way to launch and maintain orbits.
"These first images of the solar poles are just the start. Over the next few years, there is scope for discovery science. We are not sure what we will find, and it is likely we will see things that we didn’t know about before."
First ever look at the Sun’s south pole
