NASA's Solar Probe , Uncovers Origin of Violent , Solar Winds.
Gizmodo reports that NASA's Parker Solar Probe has
had several close encounters with the Sun, offering
scientists a closer look at what drives solar winds.
The team's findings were published
on June 6 in the journal 'Nature.'.
The car-sized spacecraft was designed
to reach a distance of about 4 million
miles from the surface of the Sun.
That's closer than any other
spacecraft has ever gone before.
Gizmodo reports that a recent interaction with the sun saw
the probe fly through jets of highly-energetic material,
which allowed scientists to trace the origins of solar wind.
As Parker got closer
to the Sun, they started seeing
a lot more structure in the wind, James Drake, Co-author and Professor at
the University of Maryland, via 'Gizmodo'.
You’d see high velocity wind with
lots and lots of bursts and then it
would sort of die down a little bit,
and then you’d see it getting stronger
again with many more bursts, James Drake, Co-author and Professor at
the University of Maryland, via 'Gizmodo'.
According to a new study, the solar wind
is produced by the process of magnetic
reconnection occurring on the Sun's surface.
This process involves oppositely directed
magnetic fields passing by one another,
breaking apart and then reconnecting.
The process throws charged particles
out from the surface of the Sun.
If you have two magnetic fields
pointing in opposite direction,
they annihilate each other...and that
releases magnetic energy which
produces energetic particles, James Drake, Co-author and Professor at
the University of Maryland, via 'Gizmodo'