Sun corona thickness11/7/2022 One AU, or astronomical unit, is about 93 million miles, the average distance between the sun and Earth. 12, 2018, and March 30 and April 19, 2019, when the spacecraft was within 0.25 AU of the sun, as well as data collected at farther distances. The released encounter data encompasses measurements made during the first two solar encounters, spanning the time between Oct. "We'll get close enough to where most of the mechanisms that are pushing the particles out are still actively doing that pushing," he said, adding that the mission will provide a better understanding of the space weather around Earth and allow predictions when to send astronauts to Mars or protect a satellite before it gets ripped apart by a radiation burst. "By combining these measurements, we can work toward constructing a more complete picture of how the solar wind changes as it expands from the solar surface, and what physical processes continue to act to heat this system," Klein said. Klein is a team member for SWEAP, an instrument designed to take measurements the thermal properties of the charged electrons and atoms that are the main components of the solar wind and coronal plasma. The probe carries several instruments that have made the first local measurements of the solar wind plasma, the sun's extended atmosphere that is blown off the surface and fills the solar system. Across the mere relative thickness of an onion's skin, some unknown mechanism heats the particles, also known as plasma, from about 9,000 degrees Fahrenheit at the surface to 2 million degrees or more in the corona.Īccording to mission co-investigator Kristopher Klein, an assistant professor in the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, the results are expected to shed light on many fundamental physical processes. One of the most vexing problems the probe is sent to investigate is the dramatic jump in temperature the solar wind undergoes as it leaves the sun's surface and enters its corona. Not unlike the more familiar wind in the Earth's atmosphere, the solar wind can be anything from a gentle particle breeze lighting up the Arctic night sky with green-glowing curtains of the Aurora borealis to violent gusts capable of causing global devastation. Scientists are hoping to find answers to questions that seem fundamental in nature yet have eluded them for decades – for example, where does the solar wind come from, and what causes flares and coronal mass ejections?īilled by NASA as "humanity's first visit to a star," the Parker Solar Probe will conduct seven fly-bys, during which the spacecraft will approach the sun to within 10 solar radii, far enough to not burn up and close enough to dive into the sun's atmosphere, or corona. 12, the Parker Solar Probe is the first attempt to get close to the sun and study the solar wind at its source. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe team released scientific data collected during the spacecraft's first two solar orbits to the general public on Nov. By Daniel Stolte, University Communications - November 18, 2019
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