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Explanation: What's happening near the Sun? To help find out, NASA launched the robotic Parker Solar Probe (PSP) to investigate regions closer to the Sun than ever before. The PSP's looping orbit brings it nearer to the Sun each time around -- every few months. The featured time-lapse video shows the view looking sideways from behind PSP's Sun shield during its 16th approach to the Sun last year -- from well within the orbit of Mercury. The PSP's Wide Field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR) cameras took the images over eleven days, but they are digitally compressed here into about...

In November 2021, the Parker Solar Probe skimmed within a more-than-hair-singeing 8.5 million kilometers (5.3 million miles) of the Sun, a feat enabling it to detect the fine structure of the solar wind as it gusted tons of charged particles out into the Solar System through a hole in the Sun's corona, or atmosphere.The probe's readings give us the closest look yet at how the fast solar wind is generated, suggesting that a specific type of magnetic reconnection is what drives this powerful force of nature, according to a team of physicists led by Stuart Bale of the University of...

A new video of solar streamers evokes the streaking stars seen during spacecraft hyperdrives in "Star Wars." The new NASA video from the Parker Solar Probe shows these mysterious sun structures up close for the first time, flowing past the spacecraft like interstellar fireflies. Previously, we could only catch a glimpse of streamers during solar eclipses. But with Parker specially shielded for heat-searing passes by the sun, the spacecraft has been making daring approaches closer and closer to our starry neighbor, finally reaching inside the corona during an April flyby.

(NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Laboratory) Many science fans were freaking out this week when NASA confirmed that its Parker Solar Probe had become the first spacecraft ever to 'touch the Sun' back in April. But if you thought that was mind-boggling, hang on to your seat, because there's actually time-lapse footage of the spacecraft's view as it swoops into the Sun's corona – and it's one of the most spectacular things we've seen in a very long time. The footage is made up of individual images captured between August 8 and 12 this year, during the probe's ninth perihelion,...

For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun’s upper atmosphere – the corona – and sampled particles and magnetic fields there. The new milestone marks one major step for Parker Solar Probe and one giant leap for solar science. Just as landing on the Moon allowed scientists to understand how it was formed, touching the very stuff the Sun is made of will help scientists uncover critical information about our closest star and its influence on the solar system. ... ...During the flyby, Parker Solar Probe...

Explanation: On a mission to explore the inner heliosphere and solar corona, on July 11, 2020 the Wide-field Imager on board NASA's Parker Solar Probe captured this stunning view of the nightside of Venus at distance of about 12,400 kilometers (7,693 miles). The spacecraft was making the third of seven gravity-assist flybys of the inner planet. The gravity-asssist flybys are designed to use the approach to Venus to help the probe alter its orbit to ultimately come within 6 million kilometers (4 million miles) of the solar surface in late 2025. A surprising image, the side-looking camera seems to peer...

NASA's Parker Solar Probe has had a big week: on Monday (Oct. 29) it broke two world records and on Wednesday (Oct. 31) it began its first close pass over the sun. That maneuver is the first of 24 planned science encounters with the sun, which will last until 2025. This time around, the spacecraft will reach its closest point to the sun on Nov. 5 at about 10:28 p.m. EST (0328 GMT on Nov. 6), according to NASA. At that point in its voyage, the spacecraft will be just 15 million miles (24 million kilometers) from the surface of...

Live thread for the launch of the Parker Solar Probe at 3:30AM ET. NASA TV Parker Solar Probe: NASA web page

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is providing important new insights into the inner working of the Sun and to achieve that it's breaking records left, right, and center. Last week it became the closest human-made object ever to the Sun and the fastest human-made object ever, breaking its own previous records. It was clocked zipping through the Sun's outer atmosphere at 532,000 kilometers (330,000 miles) per hour. To give you a sense of this achievement, let's put it in another context: Something made by humans just swung past the Sun at about 0.05 percent of the speed of light. The solar...

In November 2018, as seen from Earth and certain spacecraft, the sun seemed to be calm. But it wasn't: The sun was experiencing what scientists call a "stealth" coronal mass ejection. And conveniently, NASA's Parker Solar Probe was completing its first close pass behind the sun, putting its instruments in a perfect position to see what was happening on Nov. 11 and 12 during this usually cryptic event. "If you've ever seen a coronal mass ejection image, you normally see a lot of activity in these images," Kelly Korreck, a solar physicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, said during a...

For a little NASA spacecraft, the weather outside is frightful. The Parker Solar Probe is on a mission toward the sun. The spacecraft has been exposed to scorching temperatures and intense sunlight as it draws closer with every loop around. Eventually, Parker will glide through the star’s outer atmosphere and feel the toastiness of nearly 2 million degrees Fahrenheit (more than 1 million degrees Celsius). Parker is dressed appropriately for the journey. It wears a thick, custom-made shield to protect its scientific instruments and systems, and tubes with flowing water to cool itself down. Inside, it is a cozy 78...

Details regarding the incoming space rock have been collected by NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS). The agency noted that the asteroid, which has been identified as 2019 WW, is currently flying across space towards Earth at an average speed of almost 22,000 miles per hour. According to CNEOS, the asteroid has an estimated diameter of 236 feet, making it longer than the wingspan of a Boeing 747 plane. 2019 WW has been labeled as an Apollo asteroid due to its natural orbit. Like other Apollo asteroids, 2019 WW follows a wide orbit around the Sun and the Earth....

Outbursts of energetic particles that hurtle out from the sun and can disrupt space communications may be even more varied and numerous than previously thought, according to results from the closest-ever flyby of the sun. The finding that these energetic particle events are more varied and numerous than previously known was one of several discoveries made by the instrument suite known as the Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (ISOIS), a project led by Princeton University that involves multiple institutions as well as NASA. ISOIS seeks to find out how the particles become so fast moving, and what is pushing...

...why is its outer atmosphere hotter than its fiery surface? University of Michigan researchers believe they have the answer, and hope to prove it with help from NASA's Parker Solar Probe. In roughly two years, the probe will be the first manmade craft to enter the zone surrounding the sun where heating looks fundamentally different than what has previously been seen in space. This will allow them to test their theory that the heating is due to small magnetic waves travelling back and forth within the zone... Such high temperatures cause the solar atmosphere to swell to many times the...

A similar process is playing out with the probe's speed: At the peak of its first two perihelions, the spacecraft traveled at about 213,200 mph (343,000 km/h), also breaking records, but future close approaches will see the Parker Solar Probe moving still faster. These close grazes are anxious times for scientists and engineers on the mission because the spacecraft is out of communication with Earth for several days before and after each perihelion. The radio silence is designed to let the spacecraft focus on keeping its instruments tucked safely behind the thick shield that protects them from the incredible heat...

At about 10:54 p.m. EDT, Parker Solar Probe surpassed 153,454 miles per hour — as calculated by the mission team — making it the fastest-ever human-made object relative to the Sun. This breaks the record set by the German-American Helios 2 mission in April 1976. Parker Solar Probe will repeatedly break its own records, achieving a top speed of about 430,000 miles per hour in 2024.

The spacecraft will launch on a ULA Delta IV Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral in Florida at 3:33 AM EDT on Saturday morning; the launch window will last for 65 minutes. You can watch it happen at the NASA TV live stream link below. Programming starts at 3 AM and will continue through the launch. A post-launch press conference will occur after the event, but of course if the launch doesn't happen, then it will be delayed. NASA has through August 23rd to get Parker Solar Probe off the ground. This spacecraft, which will travel faster...

Those who can remember a half century back will recall these words, spoken by Captain James Kirk of the starship Enterprise at the beginning of each episode of Star Trek: “Space—the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission—to explore strange new worlds—to seek out new life and new civilizations—to boldly go where no man has gone before.” Although the original series lasted only three years and 79 episodes, it spawned follow-on series and has become a cult classic. But this essay is not about classic science fiction, the starship Enterprise, or Captain Kirk. Yet...

The Parker Solar Probe is the size of a small car and named for Prof. Eugene Parker, a 90-year-old American astrophysicist who in 1958 discovered the solar wind. It’s the first time that NASA has named a spacecraft after a living person. The Parker probe... will make a beeline for Venus for the first of seven flybys. Each gravity assist will slow the craft down and reshape its orbit (see below), so it later can pass extremely close to the Sun. The first flyby is slated for late September. ...NASA typically will fly by a planet to increase the spacecraft’s speed...