Solar craft reaches a new low
By Ron Cowen
The venerable Ulysses spacecraft has gone south.
That’s just what solar scientists had been counting on. Earlier this month, the craft passed directly below the sun, looking at the south pole from a distance of 329 million kilometers. In its 16 years of orbiting the sun, Ulysses has flown past the south pole only twice before, a feat no other solar probe has attempted.