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 and one in 1972 that set off naval mines in North Vietnam, just from the electrical currents generated by the solar storm,” said Stuart Bale, a University of California, Berkeley, professor of physics and lead author of an article about new results from the probe’s FIELDS experiment. ...One of the main goals of the Parker Solar Probe is to discover the source of the “slow” solar wind and how it is accelerated in the hot atmosphere of the sun — the 1 million-degree Celsius (about 2 million degrees Fahrenheit) solar corona. ...“The first three encounters of the solar probe that we have had so far have been spectacular,” said Bale, the principle investigator for FIELDS. “We can see the magnetic structure of the corona, which tells us that the solar wind is emerging from small coronal holes; we see impulsive activity, large jets or switchbacks which we think are related to the origin of the solar wind; we see instability — the gas itself is unstable and is generating waves on its own. And we are also surprised by the ferocity of the dust environment in the inner heliosphere.” ...Another surprise was the dust that peppered the spacecraft repeatedly during each fly-by at perihelion — the point in the orbit where the spacecraft was closest to the sun. ...the dust particles are likely debris from asteroids or comets that melted near the sun and left behind their trapped dust....
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 and one in 1972 that set off naval mines in North Vietnam, just from the electrical currents generated by the solar storm,” said Stuart Bale, a University of California, Berkeley, professor of physics and lead author of an article about new results from the probe’s FIELDS experiment. ...One of the main goals of the Parker Solar Probe is to discover the source of the “slow” solar wind and how it is accelerated in the hot atmosphere of the sun — the 1 million-degree Celsius (about 2 million degrees Fahrenheit) solar corona. ...“The first three encounters of the solar probe that we have had so far have been spectacular,” said Bale, the principle investigator for FIELDS. “We can see the magnetic structure of the corona, which tells us that the solar wind is emerging from small coronal holes; we see impulsive activity, large jets or switchbacks which we think are related to the origin of the solar wind; we see instability — the gas itself is unstable and is generating waves on its own. And we are also surprised by the ferocity of the dust environment in the inner heliosphere.” ...Another surprise was the dust that peppered the spacecraft repeatedly during each fly-by at perihelion — the point in the orbit where the spacecraft was closest to the sun. ...the dust particles are likely debris from asteroids or comets that melted near the sun and left behind their trapped dust....