Parker Solar Probe tagged posts

Researchers from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) at the University of Colorado Boulder are diving into the dusty environment that surrounds the sun — a search that could help to reveal how planets like Earth come into being.

The pursuit comes by way of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, a pioneering mission that has taken scientists closer to Earth’s home star than any spacecraft to date. Over two years, the probe has circled the sun six times, hitting maximum speeds of roughly 290,000 miles per hour.

In the process, the Parker team has learned a lot about the microscopic grains of dust that lie just beyond the sun’s atmosphere, said David Malas...

Researchers find rain on the sun in an unexpected place. The findings could create a new link between two of the biggest mysteries in solar physics. For five months in mid 2017, Emily Mason did the same thing every day...

Scientists have discovered tadpole-shaped jets coming out of regions with intense magnetic fields on the Sun. Unlike those living on Earth, these “tadpoles” – formally called pseudo-shocks – are made entirely of plasma, the electrically conducting material made of charged particles that account for an estimated 99% of the observable universe. The discovery adds a new clue to one of the longest-standing mysteries in astrophysics.

For 150 years scientists have been trying to figure out why the wispy upper atmosphere of the Sun – the corona is over 200 times hotter than the solar surface...

The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket is seen in this long exposure photograph as it launches NASA’s Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun, Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018 from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida. Parker Solar Probe is humanity’s first-ever mission into the corona to explore solar processes key to forecasting space weather events that can impact life on Earth.
Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Hours before the rise of the very star it will study, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launched from Florida Sunday to begin its journey to the Sun, where it will undertake a landmark mission. The spacecraft will transmit its first science observations in December, beginning a revolution in our understanding of the star that makes life on Earth possible.

Roughly the size ...