First Perihelion of EUI on the Solar Orbiter mission

Abstract

Context. The Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), onboard Solar Orbiter consists of three telescopes: the two High Resolution Imagers in EUV (HRIEUV) and in Lyman-α (HRILya), and the Full Sun Imager (FSI). Solar Orbiter/EUI started its Nominal Mission Phase on 2021 November 27. Aims. EUI images from the largest scales in the extended corona off limb, down to the smallest features at the base of the corona and chromosphere. EUI is therefore a key instrument for the connection science that is at the heart of the Solar Orbiter mission science goals. Methods. The highest resolution on the Sun is achieved when Solar Orbiter passes through the perihelion part of its orbit. On 2022 March 26, Solar Orbiter reached for the first time a distance to the Sun close to 0.3 au. No other coronal EUV imager has been this close to the Sun. Results. We review the EUI data sets obtained during the period 2022 March-April, when Solar Orbiter quickly moved from alignment with the Earth (2022 March 6), to perihelion (2022 March 26), to quadrature with the Earth (2022 March 29). We highlight the first observational results in these unique data sets and we report on the in-flight instrument performance. Conclusions. EUI has obtained the highest resolution images ever of the solar corona in the quiet Sun and polar coronal holes. Several active regions were imaged at unprecedented cadences and sequence durations. We identify in this paper a broad range of features that require deeper studies. Both FSI and HRIEUV operate at design specifications but HRILya suffered from performance issues near perihelion. We conclude emphasising the EUI open data policy and encouraging further detailed analysis of the events highlighted in this paper.

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Cited by in corpus (18)

• EUV fine structure and variability associated with coronal rain revealed by Solar Orbiter/EUI HRIEUV and SPICE
• EUV brightenings in the quiet-Sun: Signatures in spectral and imaging data from the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph
• A multiple spacecraft detection of the 2 April 2022 M-class flare and filament eruption during the first close Solar Orbiter perihelion
• Spectroscopic evidence of cool plasma in quiet Sun HRIEUV small scale brightenings
• Evidence of external reconnection between an erupting mini-filament and ambient loops observed by Solar Orbiter/EUI
• Spatial distributions of EUV brightenings in the quiet-Sun
• SPICE Connection Mosaics to link the Sun's surface and the heliosphere
• Solar flares in the Solar Orbiter era: Short-exposure EUI/FSI observations of STIX flares
• Extreme-ultraviolet transient brightenings in the quiet-Sun corona : Closest-perihelion observations with Solar Orbiter/EUI
• Evolution of dynamic fibrils from the cooler chromosphere to the hotter corona
• Assessment of the near-Sun magnetic field of the 10 March 2022 coronal mass ejection observed by Solar Orbiter
• Extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) observables of simulated plasmoid-mediated reconnection in the solar corona
• Can we rely on EUV emission to identify coronal waveguides?
• Future Prospects for Partially Ionised Solar Plasmas: the Prominence Case
• Moving Plasma Structures and Possible Driving Mechanisms of Solar Microflares Observed with High-Resolution Coronal Imaging
• Small-Scale and Transient EUV Kernels in Solar Flare Ribbons
• Initial radiometric calibration of the High-Resolution EUV Imager (${\text{HRI}}_{\text{EUV}}$) of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument onboard Solar Orbiter
• Radio, X-ray, and EUV signatures of internal and external reconnection of an erupting flux rope