Sun unhappy in new close-up captured by spaceship

By Dean Murray

A spaceship has captured its most detailed picture of the Sun ever - and it doesn't look happy.

The Solar Orbiter produced its widest high-res view of our star, showing the million-degree hot atmosphere - called the corona - as it looks in ultraviolet light.

However, an elongated line of sun spots looks eerily like an unhappy mouth shape, perhaps indicating the Sun is not impressed at being photographed.

Online comments have included "looks angry to me," "Sun is doing a sad face. Aww," and "Not exactly a happy face on the sun."

Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA. On 9 March, at around 77 million km from the Sun, it was oriented to point to different regions across the Sun in a 5 x 5 grid.

At each pointing direction, the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument captured six images at high resolution and two wide-angle views.

The image produced combines 200 individual images into the widest high-resolution view of the Sun yet.

"Obtaining such a detailed image is no easy feat," says the ESA.