NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has delivered its closest and most detailed view yet of the Sun’s atmosphere, revealing the chaotic origins of the solar wind and space weather events that ripple across the solar system. The findings, based on a historic flyby in December 2024, reported by SciTechDaily, are reshaping scientists’ understanding of how the Sun’s activity can disrupt satellites, power grids, and communications on Earth.
Inside the Sun’s Outer Atmosphere at Record Proximity
On December 24, 2024, Parker Solar Probe made its closest pass to date, coming within 3.8 million miles of the Sun’s surface — deeper into the corona than any spacecraft before it. Using its Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR), the spacecraft captured high-resolution images of charged particles streaming outward at speeds exceeding 1 million miles per hour.
These images not only show the turbulent flow of the solar wind but also pinpoint its birthplace, where the Sun’s magnetic field directs these particles into space. “We are witnessing where space weather threats to Earth begin, with our eyes, not just with models,” said Nicky Fox, NASA’s Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate.
The data is already being used to improve space weather forecasting models — vital for protecting astronauts, spacecraft, and critical infrastructure.
Tracking Magnetic Boundaries and Colliding Solar Eruptions
Among the probe’s most significant observations was a close-up view of the heliospheric current sheet, the boundary where the Sun’s magnetic field flips direction. This region plays a central role in shaping the behavior of the solar wind.
The probe also recorded, for the first time in such detail, multiple coronal mass ejections (CMEs) colliding. These massive bursts of plasma and magnetic fields can merge, altering their paths and intensifying their impact.
“We’re using this to figure out how the CMEs merge together,” explained Angelos Vourlidas, WISPR instrument scientist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. CME collisions can make solar storms harder to predict and more dangerous, both for satellites in orbit and for astronauts in deep space.
Solving the Mystery of the Slow Solar Wind
One of the mission’s main goals is to unravel the mystery of the slow solar wind — a denser, more variable counterpart to the fast solar wind. Previous theories suggested two types: Alfvénic, with small magnetic “switchbacks,” and non-Alfvénic, which lack such variations. Parker Solar Probe’s latest data confirmed both exist and likely originate from different solar features: coronal holes for the Alfvénic type, and helmet streamers for the non-Alfvénic.
Understanding the slow solar wind is critical because it can interact with fast-moving streams to trigger moderate but long-lasting solar storms. These storms can have effects on Earth rivaling those caused by direct CME impacts.
The Next Chapter in Unlocking the Sun’s Secrets
The mission is ongoing, with another close pass through the corona scheduled for September 15, 2025. Each encounter will allow scientists to refine their models of solar wind formation and the Sun’s magnetic structure, with the long-term goal of predicting solar activity days or even weeks in advance.
The Parker Solar Probe — launched in 2018 and named after physicist Eugene Parker, who first theorized the solar wind in 1958 — is now providing the direct, close-up data that decades of previous missions like Mariner 2, Helios, and Ulysses could only study from afar.
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