Parker Solar Probe Archives

August 31, 2024August 31, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Coronal Loops-Digital Art Combination Captures Power of the Sun, Rendered by Andrew McCarthy

A composite image comprised of the Sun's surface, corona, and digitally-added coronal loops rendered by Andrew McCarthy. (Credit: Andrew McCarthy)

Our Sun is one of the most fascinating objects in the universe and photographing it with specialized equipment to capture its splendor and beauty has become increasingly more common around the world. This is most evident with the work obtained by renowned astrophotographer, Andrew McCarthy (@AJamesMcCarthy), who owns Cosmic Background Studios in Florence, Arizona.

On July 27, 2024, McCarthy posted an image of the Sun on X (formerly known as Twitter) taken with his specialized equipment designed to safely photograph our life-giving star, which revealed active coronal loops and plasma within the solar chromosphere that are some of the many intriguing features of the Sun. However, McCarthy is quick to mention in his post that this image isn’t entirely genuine, but a combination of several attributes.

July 31, 2024July 31, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Why is the Sun’s Corona So Hot? One Hypothesis Down, Many to Go

Illustration of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe flying through a magnetic switchback from the Sun, with scientists still debating the origin of switchbacks within the Sun. (Credit: Adriana Manrique Gutierrez/NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center)

The temperature of the Sun’s corona is a minimum of 100 times hotter than the Sun’s surface, despite the corona being far less dense and extending millions of miles from the Sun’s surface, as well. But why is this? Now, a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal could eliminate a longstanding hypothesis regarding the processes responsible for the corona’s extreme heat, which could help them better understand the Sun’s internal processes. This study holds the potential to help scientists gain greater insight into the formation and evolution of our Sun, which could lead to better understanding stars throughout the universe, as well.

April 9, 2024April 9, 2024 by Mark Thompson

WISPR Team Images Turbulence within Solar Transients for the First Time

Visible light observations of a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) acquired by the Wide Field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR) telescopes

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has been in studying the Sun for the last six years. In 2021 it was hit directly by a coronal mass ejection when it was a mere 10 million kilometres from the solar surface. Luckily it was gathering data and images enabling scientists to piece together an amazing video. The interactions between the solar wind and the coronal mass ejection were measured giving an unprecedented view of the solar corona.

March 24, 2024March 24, 2024 by Laurence Tognetti

Parker Solar Probe Was Blasted by Coronal Mass Ejections 28 Times in 4 Years

Artist's rendition of NASA's Parker Solar Probe. (Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe (PSP) was launched on August 12, 2018, with the goal of becoming the first spacecraft to touch the Sun while teaching us more about our host star than any spacecraft or solar instrument in human history. Now, a recent study submitted to The Astrophysical Journal discusses the incredible data that PSP collected on coronal mass ejections (CMEs) over a four-year period. This study holds the potential to help scientists and the public better understand the CMEs and how they contribute to space weather.

March 14, 2022March 14, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

40 Telescopes Watched the Sun as the Parker Solar Probe Made its Most Recent Flyby

Sometimes in space, even when you’re millions of kilometers from anything, you’re still being watched. Or at least that’s the case for the Parker Solar Probe, which completed the 11th perihelion of its 24 perihelion journey on February 25th. While the probe was speeding past the Sun, it was being watched by over 40 space and ground-based telescopes.

February 10, 2022February 10, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Wow. Parker Solar Probe Took a Picture of the Surface of Venus

Surface features seen in the WISPR images (left) match ones seen in those from the Magellan mission (right). Credits: NASA/APL/NRL (left), Magellan Team/JPL/USGS (right)

The Parker Solar Probe’s mission is to study the Sun. But the spacecraft’s instruments have nabbed some pretty impressive data on Venus, as it uses the planet for gravity assists in its ever-shrinking solar orbit.

Now, the spacecraft has captured visible light images of Venus’ surface, somehow able to peer through the shroud of clouds in the planet’s atmosphere.

This is complete bonus data that wasn’t ever expected.

December 16, 2021January 4, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

Parker Solar Probe Flies Through the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere for the First Time

Artist’s impression of Parker Solar Probe approaching the Alfvén critical surface, which marks the end of the solar atmosphere and the beginning of the solar wind. Parker Solar Probe’s crossing into this zone in April 2021 means the spacecraft has “touched the Sun” for the first time. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ben Smith

For the first time ever, a spacecraft has flown through the Sun’s outer atmosphere. The Parker Solar Probe passed through the out portion of the Sun’s corona in April of 2021, passing directly through streamers of solar plasma.

And by the way …. there’s video of what the spacecraft “saw.”

December 12, 2021December 12, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

Parker Solar Probe Hurtles Past the Sun, Making its Closest Approach so far

We’ve covered plenty of the Parker Solar Probe’s exploits here at UT, but it keeps breaking new records almost every month. Now, with its newest flyby, it has gotten closer to the Sun than ever before, breaking its own record from previous flybys.

November 29, 2021November 29, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

The Parker Solar Probe is getting pelted by hypervelocity dust. Could they damage spacecraft?

There’s a pretty significant disadvantage to going really fast – if you get hit with anything, even if it is small, it can hurt. So when the fastest artificial object ever – the Parker Solar Probe – gets hit by grains of dust that are a fraction the size of a human hair, they still do damage. The question is how much damage, and could we potentially learn anything from how exactly that damage happens? According to new research from scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder (UCB), the answer to the second question is yes, in fact, we can.

May 7, 2021May 7, 2021 by Andy Tomaswick

What we’ve Learned About Venus From the Parker Solar Probe

The Parker Solar Probe has been getting in a lot of extracurricular activity lately. Originally designed to observe the Sun, the probe has been taking full advantage of its path through the solar system. In addition to snapping pictures of comets, the probe has repeatedly focused on Venus, including capturing an image peering underneath the cloud cover of the notoriously hot world. Now a team led by Glyn Collinson of Goddard Space Flight Center found another serendipitous discovery in the data Parker collected during its latest flyby in the summer of 2020 – the probe actually flew through Venus’ upper atmosphere, and that atmosphere appeared different than it was almost 30 years ago.