On 26 March 2022, Solar Orbiter reached its first close solar approach following a long journey, a complex series of orbits and two gravity-assist manoeuvres around Venus and one around Earth. Image: SPICE Optics Unit being assembled on to the Solar Orbiter SPICE will play a central role in achieving the key science goals of Solar Orbiter by providing the composition and speed of plasma flowing out from the Sun at temperatures of up to 1 million Kelvin (0 K = -273☌), which will allow the instrument to trace solar wind structures measured at the spacecraft back to their sources. SPICE observes the Sun's disk and corona – the gas above the Sun's surface – and will carry out the first ever spectral measurements of the solar polar regions. RAL Space led the international consortium that designed and built SPICE and has been responsible for the successful commissioning of the instrument after launch. SPICE is a high-resolution imaging spectrometer designed to make observations at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. Solar physicists use these spectra to identify the chemical makeup, temperature and velocity of plasma flows on the Sun. Solar spectroscopy is the study of absorption and emission of light by hot plasmas in the Sun's atmosphere, and involves splitting the light into its constituent wavelengths to create what is known as a spectrum. Together, these ten state-of-art instruments will help us discover what drives the Sun's 11-year cycle and improve our understanding of the solar wind that travels at speeds of several hundreds of kilometres per second. Solar Orbiter carries a total of 10 instruments: six of these, SPICE included, are remote-sensing instruments which perform high-resolution imaging of the Sun's atmosphere, and the remaining four in-situ instruments measure the solar wind, energetic particles and magnetic fields close to the spacecraft. Each time the spacecraft reaches a perihelion – the point in its orbit at which it is closest to the Sun – instruments on board are taking unprecedented close-up images of our Solar System's central star. La unched on 1 0 February 2020 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, Solar Orbiter is the most complex solar observatory to have been sent close to our Sun.
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