The Solar Orbiter Blasts Off

5/29/2020

Charlotte Park

By Charlotte Park

The Solar Orbiter has embarked on its journey to study the sun.

On February 10, 2020, the Solar Orbiter and its many cameras and sensors launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station into space. This spacecraft will be the first to photograph the Sun’s north and south poles. The European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA have collaborated on this mission in hopes of obtaining new information about the star that makes life on our planet possible.

During the first two days after its launch, the Solar Orbiter will communicate with Earth and gather scientific data. The spacecraft will then follow a path that brings it within the orbit of Mercury, allowing it to study the sun and approach the star closely 22 times. During the Solar Orbiter’s three-month commissioning phase, all of its instruments will be checked to make sure that they are working properly. It will next begin its cruise phase, lasting until November 2021, during which the spacecraft’s instruments gather information about its environment and prepare its telescopes.

Once this phase is completed, the Solar Orbiter will begin its primary phase. Using successive Venus gravity assists, the spacecraft will lift out of the ecliptic plane that previous spacecraft and other planets in our solar system have orbited. Its position once it lifts out will allow the Solar Orbiter to take pictures of the Sun’s north and south poles, an unprecedented feat. These pictures may provide more information on the pole’s impact on the solar system’s weather, which can affect humans on Earth. Being able to forecast space weather may soon become necessary, as humanity has become more susceptible to it. The spacecraft will also map the Sun’s magnetic fields from the poles. Scientists predict that these fields can explain the Sun’s cycles between relative calm and high activity as they suspect that these cycles are triggered by activity inside the star.

The collaboration between the ESA and NASA has produced the Solar Orbiter mission, which in itself is proof of how much space technology has advanced. The pictures and data that result from this mission will no doubt change our perception of the sun and answer scientists’ lingering questions surrounding the star.

Back

B-Line

B-Line students write articles that capture what it means to be part of the Barstow community, and record, review and analyze current events.

B-Line's origins date back to 1897, when students published "The School Paper," from Barstow's Quality Hill campus. It was published under various names in following decades, including "The Cornpatch," when Barstow moved to State Line in 1961. Today, B-Line is primarily a digital publication.

“Success in any line of work demands one know how to communicate with others concisely and persuasively.”

Adviser

List of 1 members.

Lucia Scott
Bio
Ms. Scott is an expert in communications, both spoken and written. Besides leading the staff of student journalists at B-Line, she teaches Advanced Debate and middle school Introduction to Debate, International Studies and Current Events.

She attended high school in the Wichita area where she occupied herself with debate and writing. Ms. Scott obtained her degree in secondary education (speech/ theatre) with a minor in communication studies from Kansas State University. She received her master’s degree in communication from Baylor University in 2018.

She believes every student should be a capable communicator and self-advocate shaping their own future. She finds that both mass communication settings like B-Line and rhetorical settings like debate prepare students for their future.