The Parker Solar Probe has finally reached the atmosphere of the Sun. Yes, we repeat, the SUN!
The NASA spacecraft spent more than three years winding its way by planets and creeping gradually closer to our star to learn more about the origin of the solar wind, which pushes charged particles across the solar system.
Photo via The Guardian
According to Space.com, solar activity has a large effect on the living on Earth, from generating auroras to threatening infrastructure like satellites. Scientists want to know more about how the Sun operates to better make predictions about space weather.
How cool!
Observations from Parker’s April 28th flyby, which was the 8th time the spacecraft whizzed by the sun, show that the spacecraft managed to get inside the Sun’s atmosphere, or the corona, for the first-time ever!
The results generated two science papers that NASA explored in a recent statement.
“We were fully expecting that, sooner or later, we would encounter the corona for at least a short duration of time,” said Justin Kasper, lead author on a new paper about the coronal milestone.
Kaper is also the deputy chief technology officer at BWX Technologies and a University of Michigan professor.
The Sun isn’t a solid sphere like our Earth, but it does have a zone in which the immense gravity of the star keeps in the solar material it spews through fusion.
Photo via The New York Times
At a particular distance from the sun, gravity and magnetic fields are no longer able to keep that material close. It’s from that point where the solar wind flows away from the sun, never to return. The point of no return is called the Alfvén critical surface and scientists had not been able to measure exactly where it was until Parker reached it.
More importantly, Parker found the critical surface is not uniform, and there are “spikes and valleys” - as NASA termed it, in which the surface protrudes higher or lower from the center of the Sun.
The surface also likely varies with solar wind activity, which in turn depends on the sun’s 11-year solar cycle.
By: Aishah Akashah Ahadiat
