In their quest to identify and track potentially dangerous sunspots hidden on the far side of the sun, scientists have turned to an unlikely ally: NASA's Perseverance rover on Mars.
Normally, the far side of the sun remains hidden from us and our space telescopes, which are positioned in orbit around Earth or at our planet's Lagrange points, where objects can be permanently stationed. This means that we do not have a clear view of what is happening on the far side of the solar surface. As a result, astronomers are often surprised by giant sunspots that appear suddenly on the sun's near side as our home star rotates at the heart of the solar system.
