Speaker
Description
First Name: Phillip
Last Name: Hess
Email Address: phillip.n.hess2.civ@us.navy.mil
Affiliation: US Naval Research Laboratory
All Authors: Phillip Hess, Robin Colaninno, Angelos Vourlidas, Guillermo Stenborg, Evangelos Paouris, Erika Palmerio, Russell Howard, Eleni Nikou
Abstract: As the Solar Orbiter spacecraft moves out of the ecliptic plane, remote sensing observations are becoming available from vantages never before possible. In particular, the imaging of the inner heliosphere from an off-ecliptic angle adds important constraints on the 3D geometry of solar transients and their interplay with the large-scale background wind. This type of imaging makes a crucial step forward for both research and space weather purposes. It also introduces new challenges in properly projecting and co-aliging the images, especially from an off-disk imager like the Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI. With an ever-changing roll angle of the spacecraft with respect to the ecliptic, as well as projections along significantly different lines of sight than previous heliospheric imagers, a careful handling of the image plane of the instrument is necessary for properly understanding these images and comparing them with other remote sensing observations in the ecliptic plane. We present the images from the first Solar Orbiter passes at latitudes up to +/- 17°, and introduce methodologies for determining the location of structures within the images in a way that allows for the accurate understanding of the 3D geometries of observed features. The SoloHI images offer exciting new perspectives of the heliospheric current sheet (HCS), solar wind outflows, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and even the stable dust corona around the Sun, as well as higher resolution over the polar region in the heliosphere than anything that has ever been possible.