Scientists have long suspected that, close to the Sun, this dust would be heated to high temperatures by powerful sunlight, turning it into a gas and creating a dust-free region around the Sun. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/Naval Research Lab/Parker Solar Probe“Since Parker Solar Probe was matching the Sun’s rotation, we could watch the outflow of material for days and see the evolution of structures,” said Howard. A child on the edge might jump off and would, at that point, move in a straight line outward, rather than continue rotating. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Conceptual Image Lab/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez“Waves have been seen in the solar wind from the start of the space age, and we assumed that closer to the Sun the waves would get stronger, but we were not expecting to see them organize into these coherent structured velocity spikes,” said Justin Kasper, principal investigator for SWEAP — short for Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons — at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. But no one had ever observed it.For the first time, Parker Solar Probe’s imagers saw the cosmic dust begin to thin out. It will approach to within 9.86 solar radii from the center of the Sun, and by 2025 will travel, at closest approach, as fast as 690,000 km/h, or 0.064% the speed of light. “Waves have been seen in the solar wind from the start of the space age, and we assumed that closer to the sun the waves would get stronger, but we were not expecting to see them organize into these coherent structured velocity spikes,” said Prof. Justin Kasper, AB’99, of the University of Michigan, a UChicago alum whose team helped build one of the instruments aboard the probe. All this activity affects our planet, injecting damaging particles into the space where our satellites and astronauts fly, disrupting communications and navigation signals, and even — when intense — triggering power outages. “While we hoped to eventually see rotational motion closer to the Sun, the high speeds we are seeing in these first encounters is nearly ten times larger than predicted by the standard models.”Another question approaching an answer is the elusive dust-free zone. “Getting data at the source is already revolutionizing our understanding of our own star and stars across the universe. It’s just the beginning of an incredibly exciting time for heliophysics with Parker at the vanguard of new discoveries.”Though it may seem placid to us here on Earth, the Sun is anything but quiet. These reversals, dubbed “switchbacks,” last anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes as they flow over Parker Solar Probe. TOPICS: Astrophysics NASA Parker Solar Probe Popular Sun University of Chicago. Simulation of particle activity near the sun. In a similar way, there’s some point between the Sun and Earth, the solar wind transitions from rotating along with the Sun to flowing directly outwards, or radially, like we see from Earth.Exactly where the solar wind transitions from a rotational flow to a perfectly radial flow has implications for how the Sun sheds energy. Amazingly Strong and Lightweight Spider Silk Made by Photosynthetic BacteriaResearchers Predict Mysterious Dark Energy Is Located in Vast Sea of GEODEs Between GalaxiesToxic Warning: Chemicals in E-cigarettes Mix Together to Form New, Unexpectedly Toxic Compounds3D-Printed Device Enhances Capture of Carbon Dioxide EmissionsNew Microfluidic Technology for the Selection of Single Photosynthetic Cellson "5 Astonishing New Discoveries From NASA’s Parker Solar Probe [Video]" The strength of the circulation was stronger than scientists had predicted.“These findings represent an incredible opportunity to help us unravel the many mysteries that stars still hold.” — Angela Olinto, dean of UChicago’s Division of the Physical Sciences“The large rotational flow of the solar wind seen during the first encounters has been a real surprise,” Kasper said. The cost of the project is US$1.5 billion. This is a bit like children riding on a playground park carousel – the atmosphere rotates with the Sun much like the outer part of the carousel rotates, but the farther you go from the center, the faster you are moving in space. Parker Solar Probe’s First Discoveries: Strange Phenomena in Space Weather, Solar Wind . Events on the sun can send energetic particles rocketing out into the solar system at nearly the speed of light. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scott Wiessinger“This dust-free zone was predicted decades ago, but has never been seen before,” said Russ Howard, principal investigator for the WISPR suite — short for Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe — at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C. “We are now seeing what’s happening to the dust near the Sun.”At the rate of thinning, scientists expect to see a truly dust-free zone starting a little more than 2-3 million miles from the Sun — meaning Parker Solar Probe could observe the dust-free zone as early as 2020, when its sixth flyby of the Sun will carry it closer to our star than ever before.Parker Solar Probe’s measurements have given us a new perspective on two types of space weather events: energetic particle storms and coronal mass ejections.Tiny particles — both electrons and ions — are accelerated by solar activity, creating storms of energetic particles. This suggests that the switchbacks are kinks in the magnetic field — localized disturbances traveling away from the Sun, rather than a change in the magnetic field as it emerges from the Sun.Parker Solar Probe’s observations of the switchbacks suggest that these events will grow even more common as the spacecraft gets closer to the Sun.
All Rights Reserved. The Parker Solar Probe was launched on August 12, 2018 and in its first few orbits moving ever closer to the sun, it has already discovered some surprising things. Our star is magnetically active, unleashing powerful bursts of light, particles moving near the speed of light and billions of tons’ worth of material.What happens on the sun is critical to understanding how it shapes the space around us.
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