![]() ![]() A new, landmark mission, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe scheduled to launch no earlier than Aug. One thing that we’re looking forward to is when Parker Solar Probe flies through one of the huge CMEs very close to the Sun and tell us how the solar energetic particles are accelerated to almost the speed of light. How the Sun manages this feat remains one of the greatest unanswered questions in astrophysics scientists call it the coronal heating problem. And it’s just amazing that to observe that spacecraft is flying through a structure that we can see during solar eclipses. This Solar Dynamics Observatory image of the Sun taken on January 10 in extreme ultraviolet light captures a dark coronal hole just about at sun center. From now on, every time the Parker Solar Probe flies close to the Sun, it will fly through the solar corona. This is only the beginning of Parker Solar Probe flying through the solar corona. The solar corona evolves on a variety of timescales closely connected with the evolution of the coronal magnetic field. What is important about them is they will tell us about the origin of the solar wind-how it came about. The magnetic field will flip over itself in and out in a matter of seconds or minutes. The switchbacks are a reversal of the magnetic field. What are switchback and why is it important to know where they originate? Flying through the atmosphere of a star is potentially the ultimate challenge that we can do here in our lives and Parker Solar is just doing that. It’s magnetized and an active star and flying so close to it will tell us exactly how it works. So far the probe has revealed that at least some magnetic zigzags in the wind, known as 'switchbacks,' come from the sun's surface. We are learning about our star and how it works and we know the Sun is always changing. Scientists have been studying solar wind, gases flowing off the sun. Scientifically, this is a huge milestone. will allow us to understand why the solar corona is over 300 times hotter than the solar surface and how this flow of charged particles that we call the solar wind is accelerated to hundred thousand miles per hour. Dubbed the coronal heating problem, the issue arises from the fact that the solar corona, or Sun’s atmosphere, is millions of degrees hotter than the layers directly below it. But mapping the strength of the magnetic fields that largely control that behavior has proved. What can we learn from flying close to the Sun that we can’t from afar?įlying through the solar corona-that is the magnetic field-dominated region of the solar atmosphere. The sun’s wispy upper atmosphere, called the corona, is an ever-changing jungle of sizzling plasma. The temperature should be even lower farther away from the Sun, but the temperature of the corona is measured at more than a million degrees. Even if the temperature in the core of the Sun does reach 15 million degrees, it drops to a mere 5000 degrees at the surface. One of the major goals for the Parker Solar Probe mission is to fly through the solar corona and we are doing that now. The problem is, no one can really explain how this corona exists. Nour Raouafi, Project Scientist of NASA's Parker Solar Probe ![]()
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