The sun's poles have flipped. A spacecraft is watching what happens next.

The Solar Orbiter has taken the first image of the sun's south pole region.

A spacecraft just got the first look at the bottom of the sun, and what it saw was a hot mess — literally.


The Solar Orbiter, a joint mission of NASA and the European Space Agency, gets an unprecedented view of the sun's southern region in ultraviolet light. Credit: ESA / NASA / Solar Orbiter / EUI Team / D. Berghmans

By Elisha Sauers on June 14, 2025

Our host star, about 93 million miles away in space, is in utter turmoil right now, having just reached peak chaos in its solar cycle. Similar to storm seasons on Earth, the sun experiences a weather pattern that repeats every 11 years. At the beginning and end of this stretch, flares and sunspots calm down. But solar activity rises before it falls, and when it climaxes, the sun roils with giant eruptions.

The Solar Orbiter, a collaborative mission between the European Space Agency and NASA, captured detailed images of the sun’s southern region in March, something no other probe has done at close range. While previous spacecraft have taken pictures around the sun's middle, the Solar Orbiter tilted to get the unprecedented southern view.

What its instruments observed wasn't unexpected, though it remains mysterious: The poles had flipped. While a normal magnet has clear north and south poles, both of the sun's poles occupy the bottom now. This happens only for a short period during "solar maximum" before a single polarity eventually takes over, and the entire magnetic field reorders itself in the reversed configuration.

"How exactly this build-up occurs is still not fully understood," said Sami Solanki, leader of one of the orbiter instrument teams from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, in a statement, "so Solar Orbiter has reached high latitudes at just the right time to follow the whole process from its unique and advantageous perspective."

The spacecraft, launched in 2020, used a gravity assist from Venus in February to swing out of the sun’s equatorial plane. That change in trajectory gave its cameras the fresh angle to see the southern region. One previous spacecraft — NASA and ESA's now-defunct Ulysses mission that began in the 1990s — flew over the sun's poles but did not have the ability to take pictures.

The orbiter comes equipped with several instruments that have different purposes. One images the sun in optical light, and another captures ultraviolet light. Two others map the sun's surface magnetic field and capture light from different temperatures of charged gas above the sun's surface.

Though the basis of the solar cycle — our star's internal clock — remains unclear, scientists think the key to understanding it lies at the poles. One of the primary mission objectives for the orbiter is to try to figure it out. Its findings may also improve predictions for space weather events that can disrupt power grids, satellites, and navigation systems.

In the March images, the orbiter viewed the sun from an angle of 17 degrees below the solar equator. Over the coming years, the spacecraft will tilt even farther. In December 2026, the orbit will change to a steeper 23 degrees. By 2029, it may reach 33 degrees to fully map both poles.



Elisha Sauers writes about space for Mashable, taking deep dives into NASA's moon and Mars missions, chatting up astronauts and history-making discoverers, and jetting above the clouds. Through 17 years of reporting, she's covered a variety of topics, including health, business, and government, with a penchant for public records requests. She previously worked for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk, Virginia, and The Capital in Annapolis, Maryland. Her work has earned numerous state awards, including the Virginia Press Association's top honor, Best in Show, and national recognition for narrative storytelling. For each year she has covered space, Sauers has won National Headliner Awards, including first place for her Sex in Space series. Send space tips and story ideas to elisha.sauers@ziffmedia.com or text 443-684-2489. Follow her on X at @elishasauers.