liftoff of the mighty delta iv heavy
rocket in august 2018 in cape canaveral
florida nasa launched parker solar probe
to touch the sun after spending a few
years spiraling closer to our star the
spacecraft has finally arrived
it is amazing
pakistan folk is touching the sun and
this is nora
the project scientist of the mission he
has been waiting for this moment since
the beginning of his career
this is a dream come true one of the
major goals for the pakistan mission is
to fly through the solar corona and we
are doing that now
so what does it mean to touch the sun to
answer that we need to look at the sun
structure
unlike earth the sun doesn't have a
solid surface it's a giant ball of hot
plasma that's held together by its own
gravity
solar material flows out from the
surface
but around the sun it's bound by the
sun's gravity and magnetic field this
material forms the sun's atmosphere the
corona eventually some of this hot and
fast solar material escapes the pull of
the sun and gushes out into space as
solar wind
the boundary that marks the edge of the
sun's atmosphere is known as the alphane
critical surface we didn't know exactly
where this boundary was
but for the first time in history a
spacecraft has crossed it parker solar
probe ventured into the corona touching
solar material still bound to the sun
the wispy corona is too faint to see
most of the time but it's revealed
during total solar eclipses
for centuries we've been studying the
sun's atmosphere during eclipses because
it's important for understanding how our
star influences life in the solar system
but much about the corona remains a
mystery two of the most challenging
scientific mysteries in astrophysics
occur in a region that we call solar
corona
the first mystery is about the
temperature the corona is about 300
times hotter than the photosphere the
visible surface of the sun below
secondly there's a constant stream of
particles flowing from the sun known as
the solar wind it accelerates up to
millions of miles per hour out of the
corona and we don't know how
solarwind can disrupt our satellites and
technology to better protect them we
need to go where the solar wind starts
in the corona so heading there has been
a key goal of nasa's for a while
we first proposed the idea of sending a
spacecraft to the sun in 1958 we didn't
have the technology to withstand the
journey until the 2000s
since its launch in 2018 parker has been
heading towards our star
then in april 2021 during parker's
eighth orbit around the sun the
spacecraft was around 20 solar radii or
8 million miles from the sun's surface
when it crossed into the corona
this is a huge milestone it took us over
six decades to come to this point
as parker entered the corona its whisper
instrument took these images streams of
plasma surrounded the spacecraft and
parker's other instruments detected that
the magnetic conditions had changed
outside the corona solar wind gushes out
pushing solar material away at high
speeds so that it can't return back to
the sun's surface
inside the corona the sun's magnetic
field becomes much stronger
solar material is slower and tethered to
the sun
instead of a smooth divide parker found
that the boundary between these two
sides is wrinkly
these bumpy ridges are created from huge
flows of plasma traveling out of the
corona
scientists are not sure why this happens
but as parker gets closer we're finding
more clues
before entering the corona parker had
seen kinks in the solar wind where it
would momentarily double back on itself
scientists called these features in the
solar wind switchbacks but no one knew
how or where they formed
in 2021 the spacecraft finally tracked
switchbacks to one of their origins
as parker got even closer to the sun it
detected bursts of switchbacks
scientists trace these bursts all the
way to the visible surface of the sun
here we see distinct cells
as heat rises beneath these convection
cells churn and create funnels of
magnetic energy above the surface
scientists found that switchbacks form
inside these funnels before rising into
the corona and beyond
this is only one piece of the
switchbacks puzzle though
exactly how they form is still unknown
over the next few years parker will keep
looking for clues as it explores our sun
the only star we can study up close
the sun is also the only star known to
support life
so understanding it is critical as we
search for life beyond our solar system
that will link directly into the
question are we alone in this universe
and that is one of the biggest questions
for humanity to answer