Nasa’s solar probe ‘touches’ the sun
Nasa's solar probe 'touches' the sun for the first time and dives into uncharted territory in the atmosphere.
A Nasa spacecraft has officially “touched” the sun, diving through the corona, the undiscovered solar atmosphere.
Scientists made the announcement at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union on Tuesday.
During the spacecraft’s seventh close encounter to the sun in April, the Parker solar probe sailed through the corona. The data took a few months to arrive, and then several more months to confirm, according to the scientists.
The news was regarded as “fascinatingly thrilling” by Nour Raouafi, a project scientist at Johns Hopkins University.
The corona is where the action occurs because the sun lacks a solid surface; studying this magnetically intense region up close will help scientists better comprehend solar outbursts that potentially disrupt life on Earth.
Parker was launched in 2018, and when it first crossed the rough, uneven boundary between the solar atmosphere and outgoing solar wind, it was 8 miles (13 kilometers) from the sun’s center. According to scientists, the spacecraft dipped in and out of the corona at least three times, each time with a smooth transition.
“We were below for almost five hours the first and most spectacular time… “You could assume that five hours doesn’t seem like a long time,” Justin Kasper of the University of Michigan told reporters. Parker, on the other hand, was going so quickly that he covered a large distance in that time, racing along at almost 62 miles (100 kilometers) per second.
According to Raouafi, the corona appeared dustier than expected. Future coronal excursions will benefit scientists in better understanding the solar wind’s origins, as well as how it is heated and pushed into space, he said.
Parker may have dropped into the corona on its eighth close encounter in August, according to preliminary data, but experts say further research is needed. Last month, it made its tenth close approach.
Until its grand finale orbit in 2025, Parker will continue to get closer to the sun and dive deeper into the corona.
The American Physical Society also published the latest findings.
