NASA’s Parker Solar Probe seems to be on a roll lately, as it’s been consistently delivering several firsts for its team and humanity as a whole. Just a few weeks back, it made the headlines for becoming the fastest man-made object, reaching a maximum speed of 586,864 km/h (363,660 mi/h) as it approached the Sun.
Now, a few days later, it’s back for more headlines, as the Parker Solar Probe “touched the Sun” as it dipped below the outer layers of the solar corona, or our star’s outermost part of its atmosphere. This makes the Parker Solar Probe the first-ever man-made object to have ever done so.
“[The] Parker Solar Probe ‘touching the Sun’ is a monumental moment for solar science and a truly remarkable feat,” according to NASA headquarters’ Science Mission Directorate associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen. “Not only does this milestone provide us with deeper insights into our Sun’s evolution and [its] impacts on our solar system, but everything we learn about our own star also teaches us more about stars in the rest of the universe,” according to Zurbuchen’s statement in a NASA press release.
In particular, the quick dive by the probe passed it through the Sun’s Alfvén critical surface (ACS), or the surface where gravity no longer binds solar material to the Sun, leaving it to run off into the distance as part of solar wind and other solar phenomena.
This means that, at the recorded distance of around 13 million km (8.1 million mi) from the perceived surface of the Sun, the Parker Solar Probe detected measurements in its magnetic and particle sensors that told it—and the scientists back here on Earth—that it had just passed the ACS. The Parker Solar Probe had just touched the edges of the Sun’s atmosphere.
Said University of Michigan professor and lead author of the paper Justin Kasper, who with a team published their world-first findings in the Physical Review Letters: “We were fully expecting that, sooner or later, we would encounter the corona for at least a short duration of time […] [but] it is very exciting that we’ve already reached it.”
The data that the solar probe will be able to gather in this area will be critical to understanding the processes that lay beneath the phenomena we now see in the solar corona, such as why it appears to be hotter in some parts compared to the surface of the Sun and how it manages to push out solar wind at such high speeds.
“It’s really exciting to see our advanced technologies succeed in taking Parker Solar Probe closer to the Sun than we’ve ever been, and to be able to return such amazing science,” said NASA Parker program executive Joseph Smith “We look forward to seeing what else the mission discovers as it ventures even closer in the coming years.”
References
- Hatfield, M. (2021, December 13). Nasa enters the solar atmosphere for the first time [Text]. NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/nasa-enters-the-solar-atmosphere-for-the-first-time-bringing-new-discoveries
- Kasper, J. C., Klein, K. G., Lichko, E., Huang, J., Chen, C. H. K., Badman, S. T., Bonnell, J., Whittlesey, P. L., Livi, R., Larson, D., Pulupa, M., Rahmati, A., Stansby, D., Korreck, K. E., Stevens, M., Case, A. W., Bale, S. D., Maksimovic, M., Moncuquet, M., … Zank, G. P. (2021). Parker solar probe enters the magnetically dominated solar corona. Physical Review Letters, 127(25), 255101. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.127.255101
- Lavars, N. (2021, December 15). NASA probe ‘touches the Sun’ with historic entry into solar atmosphere. New Atlas. https://newatlas.com/space/nasa-parker-solar-probe-sun-entry-solar-atmosphere/
- Weisberger, M. (2021, December 15). ‘Humanity has touched the sun’ in a pioneering achievement for space exploration. LiveScience. https://www.livescience.com/agu-nasa-solar-probe-touches-sun
