The solar mission that survived disaster and found 5,000 comets

The ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) launched in 1995 for a planned two-year mission but has now operated for 30 years, surviving major malfunctions including lost communications and gyroscope failures. Positioned 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, SOHO has revolutionized solar science by discovering over 5,000 comets, enabling real-time space weather forecasting, and revealing that plasma circulates in single loops within the Sun's hemispheres over 22-year cycles.