Humanity takes its 1st look at the sun's poles: 'This is just the first step of Solar Orbiter's stairway to heaven' (images)

For the first time ever, we’ve gotten a peek at the sun’s south pole—and it’s wild. The Solar Orbiter mission has snapped images showing chaotic magnetic fields and high-speed particle bursts, giving scientists a whole new perspective on our star. As one researcher put it, this is just the beginning of a "stairway to heaven" for solar exploration.