In the early hours of Sunday, September 4, Solar Orbiter flew by Venus for a gravity-assist maneuver that alters the spacecraft's orbit, getting it even closer to the sun. As if trying to get the orbiter's attention as it cozied up to another body in the solar system, the sun had flung an enormous "coronal mass ejection" straight at the spacecraft and planet just two days before their closest approach—and the data are revealing.