by Eruptions of the plasma, which are stacked on top of each other and stream in exquisite details, stream sunwind-The next pictures of our sun are a gold mine for scientists.
The pictures that were held on December 24, 2024 during his closest approach of our star’s closest approach of our star were recently published by NASA and are expected to deepen our understanding of space weather and help to protect against solar threats for the earth.
– a historical performance – –
“We have been waiting for this moment since the late 1950s,” said Nour Rawafi, project scientist for the mission in John’s Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, AFP.
Former spaceships studied the sun, but from much further.
Parker was launched in 2018 and is named after the deceased physicist Eugene Parker, who theorized the existence of the sun wind in 1958 – a constant current of electrically charged particles that ventilated through the solar system.
The probe recently entered its final orbit, in which its closest approach is only 3.8 million miles away from the sun surface-a milestone that was first reached on Christmas Eve 2024 and has been repeated twice for an 88-day cycle.
To put the closeness into the right perspective: If the distance between the earth and the sun measures one foot, Parker floats only half inches away.
His heat shield was constructed in such a way that he withstands up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 degrees Celsius) – but to the delight of the team, she has only experienced about 2,000 f (1090 ° C) and revealed the limits of theoretical modeling.
Remarkably, the instruments of the probe, only one meter behind the sign, remain with little more than room temperature.
– Stare on the sun –
The spaceship carries a single imagator, the wide field image for solar probe (WISPR), which collects data, as a parker through the corona of the sun or the outer atmosphere.
The new images are given a video for a second and show coronal mass changes (CMES) massive outbursts of charged particles that drive the room weather forward-for the first time in high resolution.
“We had several cmes that piled up on top of each other, which makes them so special,” said Rawafi. “It is really amazing to see how this dynamic happens there.”
Such outbursts triggered the widespread Auroras, which were seen in large parts of the world in May when the sun reached the highlight of its 11-year cycle.
Another remarkable feature is how the sun wind, which flows from the left, is followed by a structure that is referred to as a heliosphome power leaf: an invisible border on which the magnetic field of the sun flows from north to south.
It extends through the solar system in the form of a swirling rock and is of crucial importance for studying, since it regulates how solar eruptions spread and how strongly they can influence the earth.
– Why it is important –
Spatial weather can have serious consequences, such as overwhelming power grids, communication and threatening satellites disorders.
If thousands of other satellites enter orbit in the coming years, it will be more and more difficult to pursue it and avoid collisions – especially in the case of solar disorders, which can lead to spaceships drifting easily from their intended paths.
Rawafi is particularly enthusiastic about what is ahead of us because the sun goes towards the minimum cycle, which is expected in five to six years.
In the past, some of the most extreme space weather events were performed in this declining phase – including the notorious Halloween Solar storms of 2003, protecting astronauts on board the international space station in a protected area.
“Catch some of these big, huge eruptions … would be a dream,” he said.
Parker still has far more fuel than the engineers who were initially expected and could continue to be in operation for decades – until the solar collectors deteriorate to the point where they can no longer generate enough electricity to keep the spaceship properly.
When your mission finally ends, the probe will slowly dissolve – in Rawafi’s words “part of the sunwind itself”.
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