Smile's ultraviolet vision

The solar wind leads to 'magnetic storms' in Earth's magnetosphere that ultimately cause the auroras. Using its ultraviolet imager (UVI), Smile will be the first-ever mission to take ultraviolet photos and videos of the northern lights for 45 hours at a time.

Find out more about Smile's ultraviolet vision here.

Smile (the Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) is a joint mission between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

[Image description: Infographic describing how the Smile mission's ultraviolet imager (UVI) instrument will work. At the centre of the infographic is a picture of Earth with the spacecraft orbiting around it. The orbit goes far above the north pole and close to the south pole. Three speech bubbles explain that UVI will look down towards the northern lights from high above the north pole, that it will see the northern lights on both the day and night sides of Earth, and that at the same time Smile's soft X-ray imager instrument will photograph the edge of Earth's magnetic field. A pop out box at the bottom left explains how the X-ray and ultraviolet images will be combined to give us a better idea of how the solar wind leads to auroras. A pop out on the right shows the location of the instrument on the spacecraft, and lists some technical facts about the instrument.]