SPACE — NASA’s solar challenger, Parker Solar Probe, has become the first spacecraft to fly through the sun’s coronal mass ejection (CME). With his camera, he recorded the entire hellish incident.
Stunning video shows the spacecraft passing through the sun’s massive eruption on September 5, 2022. Parker Solar soared through the leading edge of the plasma wave (shock) before exploding out the other side.
By studying the results of the Parker Solar attraction, scientists will gather more information regarding the mysterious dynamics within the sun. That allows them to better predict solar eruptions that threaten Earth.
They published these findings exactly a year later on September 5 2023 in The Astrophysical Journal. “This is the closest we have ever observed a CME to the sun.
“We’ve never seen an event of this magnitude at this distance,” said Nour Raouafi, Parker Solar Probe project scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland.
Also read: Why doesn’t the NASA plane melt when it touches the sun?
CMEs are smoke ring-like eruptions spewed by sunspots, which are fiery regions of the surface where magnetic fields are strong. CMEs are created by the flow of electrical charges with explosions that form knots, before suddenly breaking apart.
Once launched, the CME travels millions of miles per hour, sweeping up charged particles from the solar wind to form a giant combined wave front. Parker Solar launched towards the sun in August 2018.
The ride is equipped with heat shields and radiators for close encounters with the sun. Parker Solar was also just 5.7 million miles (9.2 million km) above the sun’s surface when its cameras spotted the CME licking at its sides.
Not long after, the spacecraft plunged headfirst into the leading edge of the solar plasma tidal wave. He also felt hit by a plasma vortex when sparks of solar wind crossed his lens.
The solar probe spent two days observing solar flares, allowing physicists to study the evolution of the CME in unprecedented detail. Scientists see three stages in the evolution of the eruption. The first two waves, namely the shock wave and solar plasma, followed by the solar wind flow, have been observed previously. But the third stage, a trail of slow-moving particles, baffles scientists.
“You try simplified models to explain certain aspects of the event, but when you’re this close to the Sun, none of these models can explain everything,” said the study’s lead author, Orlando Romeo.
Also read: If a solar storm wipes out the internet, what will happen?
Space physicists at the University of California, Berkeley said in the statement that they are still not sure what is happening there or how to connect it to the other two parts.
Figuring out how solar eruptions work is critical to protecting our planet from powerful geomagnetic storms. While Earth’s magnetic field is capable of absorbing most of a CME’s impact, stronger geomagnetic storms can bend it, causing satellites in orbit to fall to Earth, damaging electrical systems, and potentially crippling the internet.
2023-09-22 12:50:00
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