NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has captured the closest-ever images of the Sun, offering an unprecedented view of the solar wind’s birthplace just 3.8 million miles above the star’s surface.
Parker has already proven to be an essential tool in understanding space weather, a major potential hazard to life on Earth, especially by achieving the closest-ever pass to the surface as it traveled through the solar corona, providing data that answers decades-old questions.
The historic new images captured by the Parker Solar Probe are now being analyzed by scientists eager to unlock deeper insights into how our life-sustaining—yet potentially hazardous—star shapes the space environment around Earth. The probe’s record-breaking close approach took place on December 24, 2024, when it flew just 3.8 million miles above the Sun’s surface, collecting data from within the star’s outer atmosphere.
The Dangers of Space Weather
“Parker Solar Probe has once again transported us into the dynamic atmosphere of our closest star,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We are witnessing where space weather threats to Earth begin, with our eyes, not just with models. This new data will help us vastly improve our space weather predictions to ensure the safety of our astronauts and the protection of our technology here on Earth and throughout the solar system.”
While the Parker Space Probe carries multiple instruments, each engaged in collecting important data, one of the most notable is the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR). Images captured by WISPR display the torrents of charged particles, known as the solar wind, which emanate from the Sun to impact other bodies in the solar system. The solar wind combines with solar magnetic currents and ejecta to produce auroras, disrupt technological communications and electrical grids, and can even tear away planetary atmospheres. Given the seriousness of these ramifications, scientists attach significant importance to the solar wind.
Understanding the Solar Wind
To better understand the impacts of space weather events, scientists are using WISPR information to study how the solar wind forms. The new images provide data about the solar wind at its earliest points after escaping the corona, showing the action occurring at the heliospheric current sheets, where the Sun’s magnetic field direction flips from north to south.
Additionally, WISPR captured the first high-resolution images of multiple collisions involving coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which occur when bursts of charged particles interact to drive space weather. Those collisions alter the trajectories of CMEs, making them more unpredictable, but also more dangerous as they accelerate.
“In these images, we’re seeing the CMEs basically piling up on top of one another,” said Angelos Vourlidas, the WISPR instrument scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which designed, built, and operates the spacecraft out of Laurel, Maryland. “We’re using this to figure out how the CMEs merge together, which can be important for space weather.”
Unexpected Solar Discoveries from the Parker Solar Probe
Other missions to study the stellar wind have been forced to keep their distance, leaving a significant gap in understanding with the data they have collected. By the time the solar wind reaches Earth, it is generally a steady breeze, compared to the much more volatile findings of the Parker Space Probe’s coronal observations.
Based on Parker’s latest observations, the coronal boundary itself proved to be more complex than initially theorized, in addition to being highly uneven.
The probe also found other anomalies in close proximity to the solar surface, such as switchbacks where magnetic fields zig-zag, being much more common than previously suspected. It turned out that those switchbacks were the driver for the fast solar wind. For the slow solar wind, the Parker Space Probe was able to confirm theories that two types exist: Alfvénic, which contains small switchbacks, and non-Alfvénic, which does not.
However, determining the cause of the slow solar wind will require additional research. Fortunately, work continues with the Parker Space Probe scheduled to make its next pass in September of this year.
“The big unknown has been: how is the solar wind generated, and how does it manage to escape the Sun’s immense gravitational pull?” said Nour Rawafi, the project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. “Understanding this continuous flow of particles, particularly the slow solar wind, is a major challenge, especially given the diversity in the properties of these streams — but with Parker Solar Probe, we’re closer than ever to uncovering their origins and how they evolve.”
While lacking in speed, the slow solar wind is an essential area of study, as it is denser and more variable, causing it to have a substantial effect on Earth, comparable to that of CMEs.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.