The spacecraft's tilted orbit will allow scientists to investigate the mechanisms behind space weather that impact crucial human activity on Earth

"We didn't know what exactly to expect from these first observations – the sun's poles are literally terra incognita,” Sami Solanki, who leads the PHI instrument team from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS), said in a statement.

A recent Venus flyby pushed the spacecraft out of Earth's orbital plane, allowing it to gaze at the solar poles.