![]() ![]() Understanding the source of the solar wind can help scientists better predict space weather and solar storms that can affect Earth.Īlthough they can cause beautiful auroras, the solar storms can also impact satellites and Earth’s electrical grids. JHU Applied Physics Laboratory/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center This flip causes the coronal holes to appear across the sun’s surface and release bursts of solar wind directly toward Earth.Īn illustration depicts Parker Solar Probe as it approaches the sun. But during the maximum of the solar cycle, an 11-year period over which the sun’s activity gradually increases, the sun’s magnetic field flips. The fast solar wind doesn’t usually impact Earth. The slower solar wind, located in the same plane of the solar system as Earth, flows at a calmer 249 miles per second (400 kilometers per second). The faster solar wind streams from holes in the corona at the sun’s poles at a peak speed of 497 miles per second (800 kilometers per second). The far-reaching phenomenon also includes part of the solar magnetic field and extends well beyond the corona, interacting with planets and the interstellar medium. Solar wind is a continuous outflow of plasma, which contains charged particles like protons and electrons. The spacecraft was specially designed to eventually fly within 4 million miles (6.4 million kilometers) above the solar surface, and in late 2021, it became the first mission to “touch” the sun.Ī study detailing the solar findings was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. ![]() One of the key motivations behind the mission, named for the late astrophysicist Eugene Parker and launched in 2018, was to determine what the wind looks like as it forms near the sun and how it escapes the star’s gravity.Īs the probe came within about 13 million miles (20.9 million kilometers) of the sun, its instruments detected fine structures of the solar wind where it generates near the photosphere, or the solar surface, and captured ephemeral details that disappear once the wind is blasted from the corona. A solar mission that has been spiraling closer to the sun to unravel its secrets has flown near enough to our star’s surface to make a key discovery.ĭata from the Parker Solar Probe has uncovered the source of solar wind, a stream of energized particles that flow from the corona, or the sun’s hot outer atmosphere, toward Earth. ![]()
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