Parker probe traces solar wind to its source on sun’s surface
https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/12/04/parker-probe-traces-solar-wind-to-its-source-on-suns-surface Source: By Robert Sanders, UC Berkeley News. Excerpt: A year ago, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe flew closer to the sun than any satellite in history, collecting a spectacular trove of data from the very edge of the sun’s million-degree corona. ...that data has allowed solar physicists to map the source of a major component of the solar wind that continually peppers Earth’s atmosphere, while revealing strange magnetic field reversals that could be accelerating these particles toward our planet. These accelerated particles interact with Earth’s magnetic field, generating the colorful northern and southern lights. But they also have the potential to damage the electrical grid and telecommunications networks on Earth’s surface, threaten orbiting satellites and perhaps endanger astronauts in space. ...“There was a major space weather event in 1859 that blew out telegraph networks on Earth an