# @europeanspaceagency on Instagram

- **Type:** Image
- **Original URL:** https://www.instagram.com/p/DHwBb9KNKOH
- **Gondola URL:** https://gondola.cc/posts/35582214-europeanspaceagency-instagram
- **Thumbnail:** https://img.gondola.cc/tr:w-,h-,fo-auto/postThumbnails/5a7f5e73a4.jpg
- **Posted:** 2025-03-28T16:50:00.000+00:00
- **Account Owner:** J.L.Lopez (@xandler80) — https://gondola.cc/xandler80

## Caption

Flares, Radio Waves & the Sounds of the Sun! 🌞
 
Our Solar Orbiter mission is bringing us closer to the Sun than ever before, revealing the secrets of solar activity that impact Earth. And now we're inviting you to get involved in real solar research! Swipe through to see – and hear – the Sun in action.
 
1. A Solar flare up close: Captured by Solar Orbiter’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager on 30 September 2024, this dazzling M-class flare shows a powerful explosion on the Sun’s surface. These flares release massive amounts of energy, heating plasma to millions of degrees in just minutes! 
 
2. The Sun’s own radio station: Solar flares fling electrons out into space, which release radio waves as they interact with other particles. Solar Orbiter’s Radio and Plasma Waves (RPW) instrument picks up these radio wave signals, and now we're looking for citizen science volunteers to dig through RPW data to find them! Head to the projects section on Zooniverse.org to get involved.
Each ‘pyoong’ you hear in this video is a real radio burst, with the tone lowering and fading as electrons travel further into space. The biggest burst in this clip lasted three hours in real time!
 
3. A Solar radio burst in action: This animation shows how a solar flare ejects electrons into space (red dashed line). As they move outward, they interact with other particles (green circles), producing radio waves detected by Solar Orbiter (green wavy lines). The graph on the right is real data from Solar Orbiter’s RPW instrument, showing the ‘hockey stick’ shape of a radio burst as frequencies drop with distance.
 
Help us find every burst over the last five years, so that we can better understand the Sun’s behaviour & its effects on Earth’s technology and communications. Curious to explore more? Go to esa.int/solarorbiter!
 
📹 europeanspaceagency & NASA / Solar Orbiter / EUI Team
📹 ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/RPW, sonification by Katerina Pesini
Acknowledgements: Philippe Zarka (IDL script), Alan Loh (Python script), Dimosthenis Bitzilos (video editing support)
🖥️ ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/RPW Team, graphic made by Katerina Pesini

## Stats

- **Views:** 0
- **Likes:** 48,887
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- **Comments:** 233

## Credits

These are the roles credited on Gondola. Credits may be incomplete.
A brand, account owner, or featured person is not necessarily the creator.

| Name | Username | Profile | Role |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| ESA - European Space Agency | @europeanspaceagency | https://gondola.cc/europeanspaceagency | Government Organization |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Producer |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Editor |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Social Media Manager |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Publisher |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Copywriter |
| J.L.Lopez | @xandler80 | https://gondola.cc/xandler80 | Community Manager |

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