KEY POINTS

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has taken the closest ever images to the Sun, captured just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface.

The new close-up images show features in the solar wind, the constant stream of electrically charged subatomic particles released by the Sun that rage across the solar system at speeds exceeding 1 million miles an hour.

These images, and other data, are helping scientists understand the mysteries of the solar wind, which is essential to understanding its effects at Earth.

On its record-breaking pass by the Sun late last year, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe captured stunning new images from within the Sun’s atmosphere. These newly released images — taken closer to the Sun than we’ve ever been before — are helping scientists better understand the Sun’s influence across the solar system, including events that can affect Earth.

“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.”

Parker Solar Probe started its closest approach to the Sun on Dec. 24, 2024, flying just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface. As it skimmed through the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, in the days around the perihelion, it collected data with an array of scientific instruments, including the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe, or WISPR.

Parker Solar Probe has revolutionized our understanding of the solar wind thanks to the spacecraft’s many passes through the Sun’s outer atmosphere.

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Joy Ng

The new WISPR images reveal the corona and solar wind, a constant stream of electrically charged particles from the Sun that rage across the solar system. The solar wind expands throughout of the solar system with wide-ranging effects. Together with outbursts of material and magnetic currents from the Sun, it helps generate auroras, strip planetary atmospheres, and induce electric currents that can overwhelm power grids and affect communications at Earth. Understanding the impact of solar wind starts with understanding its origins at the Sun.

The WISPR images give scientists a closer look at what happens to the solar wind shortly after it is released from the corona. The images show the important boundary where the Sun’s magnetic field direction switches from northward to southward, called the heliospheric current sheet. It also captures the collision of multiple coronal mass ejections, or CMEs — large outbursts of charged particles that are a key driver of space weather — for the first time in high resolution.

“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 in Laurel, Maryland. “We’re using this to figure out how the CMEs merge together, which can be important for space weather.”

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video This video, made from images taken by Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument during its record-breaking flyby of the Sun on Dec. 25, 2024, shows the solar wind racing out from the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Lab

When CMEs collide, their trajectory can change, making it harder to predict where they’ll end up. Their merger can also accelerate charged particles and mix magnetic fields, which makes the CMEs’ effects potentially more dangerous to astronauts and satellites in space and technology on the ground. Parker Solar Probe’s close-up view helps scientists better prepare for such space weather effects at Earth and beyond.

Zooming in on Solar Wind’s Origins

The solar wind was first theorized by preeminent heliophysicist Eugene Parker in 1958. His theories about the solar wind, which were met with criticism at the time, revolutionized how we see our solar system. Prior to Parker Solar Probe’s launch in 2018, NASA and its international partners led missions like Mariner 2, Helios, Ulysses, Wind, and ACE that helped scientists understand the origins of the solar wind — but from a distance. Parker Solar Probe, named in honor of the late scientist, is filling in the gaps of our understanding much closer to the Sun.

At Earth, the solar wind is mostly a consistent breeze, but Parker Solar Probe found it’s anything but at the Sun. When the spacecraft reached within 14.7 million miles from the Sun, it encountered zig-zagging magnetic fields — a feature known as switchbacks. Using Parker Solar Probe’s data, scientists discovered that these switchbacks, which came in clumps, were more common than expected.

When Parker Solar Probe first crossed into the corona about 8 million miles from the Sun’s surface in 2021, it noticed the boundary of the corona was uneven and more complex than previously thought.

As it got even closer, Parker Solar Probe helped scientists pinpoint the origin of switchbacks at patches on the visible surface of the Sun where magnetic funnels form. In 2024 scientists announced that the fast solar wind — one of two main classes of the solar wind — is in part powered by these switchbacks, adding to a 50-year-old mystery.

However, it would take a closer view to understand the slow solar wind, which travels at just 220 miles per second, half the speed of the fast solar wind.

“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.”

Understanding Slow Solar Wind

The slow solar wind, which is twice as dense and more variable than fast solar wind, is important to study because its interplay with the fast solar wind can create moderately strong solar storm conditions at Earth sometimes rivaling those from CMEs.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video This artist’s concept shows a representative state of Earth’s magnetic bubble immersed in the slow solar wind, which averages some 180 to 300 miles per second. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab

Prior to Parker Solar Probe, distant observations suggested there are actually two varieties of slow solar wind, distinguished by the orientation or variability of their magnetic fields. One type of slow solar wind, called Alfvénic, has small-scale switchbacks. The second type, called non-Alfvénic, doesn’t show these variations in its magnetic field.

As it spiraled closer to the Sun, Parker Solar Probe confirmed there are indeed two types. Its close-up views are also helping scientists differentiate the origins of the two types, which scientists believe are unique. The non-Alfvénic wind may come off features called helmet streamers — large loops connecting active regions where some particles can heat up enough to escape — whereas Alfvénic wind might originate near coronal holes, or dark, cool regions in the corona.

In its current orbit, bringing the spacecraft just 3.8 million miles from the Sun, Parker Solar Probe will continue to gather additional data during its upcoming passes through the corona to help scientists confirm the slow solar wind’s origins. The next pass comes Sept. 15, 2025.

“We don’t have a final consensus yet, but we have a whole lot of new intriguing data,” said Adam Szabo, Parker Solar Probe mission scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

By Mara Johnson-Groh

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Solar scientists have found tiny, short-lived jets of energy on our sun to be the primary drivers of the solar wind, marking a step toward decoding our star’s elusive behavior and, eventually, refining predictions of its storms.

The “solar wind” refers to pockets of energetic particles blasted out from the sun. These particles are occasionally directed toward Earth, like last summer when a rare cluster of such storms rained on our planet and sparked breathtaking auroras across the globe — likely the strongest auroras we’ve seen in centuries. The solar wind can also affect our planet in a negative way, however, such as through the disruption of GPS signals and other technologies that are reliant on satellite and radio communications; it can also threaten the safety of astronauts in Earth orbit.

Still, the precise origins of the solar wind have proven difficult to pinpoint. This is partly because the “footprints” carried by the charged particles in the wind — features that scientists suspect would reveal unique signatures of the regions on the sun that give rise to the solar wind — are often distorted by the time they reach Earth .

Solar Orbiter took this image of the sun during its close approach in March 2022. (Image credit: ESA)

Previous research revealed that tiny jets emerging from large, dark gaps in the sun’s outer atmosphere , or corona, drive the fastest solar wind particles despite being a trillion times weaker than the sun’s most powerful flares and lasting no more than a minute. These so-called “picoflares” are ubiquitous and are powered by magnetic field lines that stretch into space rather than loop back to the sun’s surface, serving as cosmic highways that allow superheated plasma particles to escape the sun’s magnetic grasp and launch outward at hypersonic speeds.

“The energy content of a single picoflare jet that lives for about one minute is equal to the average power consumed by about 10,000 households in the U.K. over an entire year,” Lakshmi Pradeep Chitta of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany previously told Space.com .

However, scientists have found that tracking down the source of the slower component of the solar wind to be more difficult. Now, a new analysis by Chitta and his team, using up-close data from the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft, provides compelling evidence that these picoflares are also supplying energy to the slower solar wind.

“We were very surprised to see that the same tiny plasma jets appear to be driving both the fast and the slow solar wind,” Chitta said in a recent statement . “Previously, we had assumed that different processes are at work.”

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To reach their conclusions, Chitta and his colleagues studied data collected by Solar Orbiter in late 2022 and early 2023, when the spacecraft had made its scheduled close approaches to the sun. During these passes, the probe managed to get roughly 31 million miles (50 million kilometers) from our star, allowing its onboard cameras to capture high-resolution images of the jets in coronal holes as well as direct measurements of the solar wind.

By combining these observations, “the researchers could directly connect the solar wind measured at the spacecraft back to those exact same jets,” ESA wrote in a statement .

“This is the first time that we can say for sure that at least some of the slow solar wind also comes from tiny jets in coronal holes,” the agency added. Until now, the origin of the solar wind had been elusive.”

Forthcoming close approaches to the sun by Solar Orbiter, which occur roughly twice a year, could shed more light onto how the picoflares launch the solar wind, the statement read.

Operations teams have confirmed NASA’s mission to “touch” the Sun survived its record-breaking closest approach to the solar surface on 24 December 2024.

Breaking its previous record by flying just 6,115-million kilometres (3,8-million miles) above the surface of the Sun, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe hurtled through the solar atmosphere at a blazing 692 000 kilometres per hour (430 000 miles per hour) — faster than any human-made object has ever moved. A beacon tone received late on 26 December confirmed the spacecraft had made it through the encounter safely and is operating normally.

This pass, the first of more to come at this distance, allows the spacecraft to conduct unrivaled scientific measurements with the potential to change our understanding of the Sun.

“Flying this close to the Sun is a historic moment in humanity’s first mission to a star,” says Nicky Fox, who leads the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “By studying the Sun up close, we can better understand its impacts throughout our solar system, including on the technology we use daily on Earth and in space, as well as learn about the workings of stars across the universe to aid in our search for habitable worlds beyond our home planet.”

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe survived its record-breaking closest approach to the solar surface on 24 December 2024. Breaking its previous record by flying just 6,115-million kilometres above the surface of the Sun, the spacecraft hurtled through the solar atmosphere at a blazing 692 000 kilometres per hour — faster than any human-made object has ever moved.

Credits: NASA

Parker Solar Probe has spent the last six years setting up for this moment. Launched in 2018, the spacecraft used seven flybys of Venus to gravitationally direct it ever closer to the Sun. With its last Venus flyby on 6 November 2024, the spacecraft reached its optimal orbit. This oval-shaped orbit brings the spacecraft an ideal distance from the Sun every three months — close enough to study our Sun’s mysterious processes but not too close to become overwhelmed by the Sun’s heat and damaging radiation. The spacecraft will remain in this orbit for the remainder of its primary mission.

“Parker Solar Probe is braving one of the most extreme environments in space and exceeding all expectations,” says Nour Rawafi, the project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), which designed, built, and operates the spacecraft from its campus in Laurel, Maryland. “This mission is ushering a new golden era of space exploration, bringing us closer than ever to unlocking the Sun’s deepest and most enduring mysteries.”

Close to the Sun, the spacecraft relies on a carbon foam shield to protect it from the extreme heat in the upper solar atmosphere called the corona, which can exceed 537 000 degrees Celsius (1-million degrees Fahrenheit). The shield was designed to reach temperatures of 1 426 degrees Celsius (2 600 degrees Fahrenheit) — hot enough to melt steel — while keeping the instruments behind it shaded at a comfortable room temperature. In the hot but low-density corona, the spacecraft’s shield is expected to warm to 982 degrees Celsius (1 800 degrees Fahrenheit).

“It’s monumental to be able to get a spacecraft this close to the Sun,” says John Wirzburger, the Parker Solar Probe mission systems engineer at APL. “This is a challenge the space science community has wanted to tackle since 1958 and had spent decades advancing the technology to make it possible.”

By flying through the solar corona, Parker Solar Probe can take measurements that help scientists better understand how the region gets so hot, trace the origin of the solar wind (a constant flow of material escaping the Sun), and discover how energetic particles are accelerated to half the speed of light.

“The data is so important for the science community because it gives us another vantage point,” says Kelly Korreck, a program scientist at NASA Headquarters and heliophysicist who worked on one of the mission’s instruments. “By getting firsthand accounts of what’s happening in the solar atmosphere, Parker Solar Probe has revolutionised our understanding of the Sun.”

Previous passes have already aided scientists’ understanding of the Sun. When the spacecraft first passed into the solar atmosphere in 2021, it found the outer boundary of the corona is wrinkled with spikes and valleys, contrary to what was expected. Parker Solar Probe also pinpointed the origin of important zig-zag-shaped structures in the solar wind, called switchbacks, at the visible surface of the Sun — the photosphere.

Since that initial pass into the Sun, the spacecraft has been spending more time in the corona, where most of the critical physical processes occur.

“We now understand the solar wind and its acceleration away from the Sun,” says Adam Szabo, the Parker Solar Probe mission scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre. “This close approach will give us more data to understand how it’s accelerated closer in.”

Parker Solar Probe has also made discoveries across the inner solar system. Observations showed how giant solar explosions called coronal mass ejections vacuum up dust as they sweep across the solar system, and other observations revealed unexpected findings about solar energetic particles. Flybys of Venus have documented the planet’s natural radio emissions from its atmosphere, as well as the first complete image of its orbital dust ring.

So far, the spacecraft has only transmitted that it’s safe, but soon it will be in a location that will allow it to downlink the data it collected on this latest solar pass.

“The data that will come down from the spacecraft will be fresh information about a place that we, as humanity, have never been,” says Joe Westlake, the director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. “It’s an amazing accomplishment.”

The spacecraft’s next planned close solar passes come on 22 March 2025, and 19 June 2025.

Article by Mara Johnson-Groh, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre

Featured picture: An artist’s concept showing Parker Solar Probe.

NASA/APL

On December 24, 2024, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe soared just 6.1 million km (3.8 million miles) above the surface of our home star, racing through the solar atmosphere at 692,000 km per hour (430,000 mph) — the fastest speed ever achieved by a human-made object; a signal received two days later confirmed the spacecraft had made it through the encounter safely and is operating normally.

Close to the Sun, Parker Solar Probe relies on a carbon foam shield to protect it from the extreme heat in the upper solar atmosphere called the corona, which can exceed 500,000 degrees Celsius (1 million degrees Fahrenheit).

The shield was designed to reach temperatures of 1,427 degrees Celsius (2,600 degrees Fahrenheit), while keeping the instruments behind it shaded at a comfortable room temperature.

In the hot but low-density corona, the spacecraft’s shield is expected to warm to 982 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit).

“Flying this close to the Sun is a historic moment in humanity’s first mission to a star,” said Dr. Nicky Fox, the associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

“By studying the Sun up close, we can better understand its impacts throughout our Solar System, including on the technology we use daily on Earth and in space, as well as learn about the workings of stars across the Universe to aid in our search for habitable worlds beyond our home planet.”

“Parker Solar Probe is braving one of the most extreme environments in space and exceeding all expectations,” said Parker Solar Probe project scientist Dr. Nour Rawafi, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

“This mission is ushering a new golden era of space exploration, bringing us closer than ever to unlocking the Sun’s deepest and most enduring mysteries.”

“It’s monumental to be able to get a spacecraft this close to the Sun,” said Parker Solar Probe mission systems engineer John Wirzburger, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

“This is a challenge the space science community has wanted to tackle since 1958 and had spent decades advancing the technology to make it possible.”

By flying through the solar corona, Parker Solar Probe can take measurements that help scientists better understand how the region gets so hot, trace the origin of the solar wind and discover how energetic particles are accelerated to half the speed of light.

“The data are so important for the science community because it gives us another vantage point,” said Dr. Kelly Korreck, a program scientist at NASA Headquarters.

“By getting firsthand accounts of what’s happening in the solar atmosphere, Parker Solar Probe has revolutionized our understanding of the Sun.”

So far, the spacecraft has only transmitted that it’s safe, but soon it will be in a location that will allow it to downlink the data it collected on this latest solar pass.

“The data that will come down from the spacecraft will be fresh information about a place that we, as humanity, have never been. It’s an amazing accomplishment,” said Dr. Joe Westlake, the director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters.

The spacecraft’s next planned close solar passes come on March 22 and June 19, 2025.