NASA’s Parker Solar Probe successfully touched our star for the first time ever! Flying through its upper atmosphere – known as corona – and sampling particles and magnetic fields there.
Named in honor of astrophysicist Eugene Parker, this mission seeks to explore and comprehend the Sun’s mysterious corona and solar wind that circulate our closest star. So far it’s already revealed some surprising new details.
What happened?
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, launched three years ago, has finally reached the Sun and made an important discovery.
Eugene Parker Spacecraft has completed its maiden voyage inside our star’s outer atmosphere, known as its corona. Here it sampled particles and magnetic fields for the first time ever.
This week, the probe passed by an Alfven critical surface at the edge of the corona; at this point it appears to experience counterintuitive superheating.
Scientists will use data collected by Parker to gain a greater understanding of solar activity’s effect on Earth, from aurorae production to satellite threats. Over its seven year lifetime, Parker will circle our sun 24 times, moving closer and closer.
How did it happen?
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has successfully entered the Sun’s tenuous outer atmosphere – known as its corona. This marks an incredible accomplishment for an unmanned craft launched last year that is flying closer than any previous mission in human history.
This $1.5 billion probe has been orbiting the Sun since January 2016, gradually drawing closer each time with each flyby and protected by a carbon-composite heat shield designed to withstand temperatures that could exceed 1,370 degrees Fahrenheit. A combination of strategies was employed – including repeated flybys of Venus – in order to get close enough for its entry into its corona.
Scientists dubbed the boundary the Alfven critical surface, after Swedish physicist Hannes Alfven first proposed its existence in 1942. While scientists knew about its existence based on previous observations and calculations, their precise location remained elusive until now; instead of being smooth like a ball like was once imagined it has spikes and valleys which make up its shape.
What will it tell us?
NASA scientists are currently reviewing data collected during Parker Solar Probe’s April 28 flyby of the sun, during which it flew directly through its “Alfven critical surface.” That is where solar wind begins streaming out from our star and flinging charged particles across space. Scientists at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) developed and monitor an instrument known as Solar Probe Cup to monitor this flow of wind while it moved by.
The Eugene Parker Mission was intended to get as close as possible to our sun and its fragile outer atmosphere, the corona, where many fundamental mysteries about our star reside.
Scientists seek to understand the origin of solar wind, which blows charged particles across our Solar System and how its gravity influences living beings such as us. Parker provides scientists with a front-row seat by coming closer than any spacecraft before it.
What’s next?
NASA’s solar probe successfully made its maiden voyage into our star’s outer atmosphere for the first time on Monday – an achievement many heliophysicists had dreamed of for many years prior. Launched last year and named for late astrophysicist Eugene Parker (deceased), this probe had to be designed specifically to pass within 4 million miles of Sun’s surface – something no previous mission had achieved.
At roughly one third the Earth-Sun distance, this mission’s target distance is close enough to reach its corona, which is significantly hotter than both photosphere and core of our Sun. Our aim is to determine where gravity-defying solar wind originates – scientists suspect coronal loops zigzagging across visible surfaces are likely candidates – as well as why its plasma composition differs so significantly from photosphere temperatures.
To meet its objectives, this spacecraft is fitted with an array of instruments tucked beneath an impressively robust heat shield. Furthermore, its longer duration in the corona will enable it to observe particles and magnetic fields that would otherwise be hard or impossible to study from outside.