Science is Fun Fridays!

 

NASA's Parker Solar Probe made history this year being the first spacecraft to "touch the Sun."

Parker flew through the upper atmosphere, or corona, sampling particles and magnetic fields.

There is a region, known as the Alfvén critical surface, that marks the end of the solar atmosphere and the beginning of the solar wind.  Now scientists know exactly where that region is.

Here we can see the highly energized particles and structures in the corona, called streamers.  They are visible from Earth during total solar eclipses.  You can also see the Milky Way peeking through.

Parker previously collected data pinpointing switchbacks in the solar wind, and scientists have been curious where they originate.  As the probe orbited closer to the Sun, data showed these switchbacks occur in patches and have high percentages of helium, known to come from the photosphere.  They found these patches align with magnetic funnels that emerge from the photosphere between convection cell structures called supergranules.

NASA