to help protect vital technology on earth physicists in the german city of pottstown studying the sun very closely they want to predict solar storms a number of satellites are already providing detailed information about the star and the stormy cloud of superheated gas that surrounds it. images like this are of course very impressive. that something special about solar physics compared to astrophysics or extragalactic physics we can actually see the processes happening on the sun. they occur on a time scale that we can still observe for ourselves. with help from the european space agency's solar orbiter satellite the researches want to discover more about how solar storms develop to do so the satellite will need to get extremely close to the sun and then spend 10 days observing just one area of the burning ball of gas the scientists imparts helps develop an important instrument for the satellite it was tested here at the einstein tower an observatory where solar research has been conducted for over 90 years. now they're testing complex high tech components for a special purpose telesc