A European and NASA spacecraft has snapped the closest pictures ever taken of the sun, revealing countless little "campfires" flaring everywhere.

The photos were taken by Solar Orbiter, the spacecraft launched in February by the European Space Agency and NASA.

The orbiter was about 48 million miles (77 million kilometers) from the sun, about halfway between the Earth and the sun when it took the stunning high-resolution pictures in June.

This is just the beginning of the long epic journey of Solar Orbiter as it will get even closer to the sun in two years.