The NASA probe reveals the secrets of the corona region
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has made contact with the Sun for the first time, it was confirmed in December. The spacecraft dived in and out of the corona – the outer layer of the Sun’s atmosphere – three times in April 2021, though it’s taken several months to confirm.
Over three years, Parker has been getting closer to the solar surface. During its eighth close approach, when it was 13 million kilometres out, it sensed a change in its environment.
“We see evidence of being in the corona in magnetic field data, solar wind data and visually in images,” says Nour Raouafi, Parker’s Project Scientist from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. As the corona isn’t uniform, it flew in and out of the region several times. “We can see the probe flying through coronal structures that can be observed in a total solar eclipse.”
Parker will continue to move in closer to the Sun, mapping out the solar atmosphere, before reaching a closest approach distance of around 6 million kilometres in 2025. parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu