The mystery about the Sun has been solved by NASA’s Parker Solar Probe after a long time.
The Sun has always been a source of fascination for scientists and researchers alike. It is the center of our solar system and the source of all life on Earth. However, despite its importance, there are still many mysteries surrounding the Sun that have yet to be solved. One of the biggest mysteries has been the behavior of the Sun’s corona, the outermost layer of its atmosphere. For years, scientists have been trying to understand why the corona is so much hotter than the surface of the Sun itself. Finally, after a long time, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has provided some answers.
The Parker Solar Probe is a spacecraft that was launched by NASA in August 2018. Its mission is to study the Sun up close and gather data that will help scientists better understand its behavior. The spacecraft is equipped with a suite of instruments that allow it to measure the Sun’s magnetic field, plasma, and energetic particles. It is also able to take images of the Sun’s corona, which is the area of the Sun’s atmosphere that extends millions of kilometers into space.
One of the main goals of the Parker Solar Probe mission is to study the corona and try to understand why it is so much hotter than the surface of the Sun. The surface of the Sun, known as the photosphere, has a temperature of around 5,500 degrees Celsius. However, the corona has a temperature of over a million degrees Celsius. This has been a mystery for scientists for many years, as it goes against what we would expect based on our understanding of how heat is transferred.
One theory that has been proposed to explain the high temperature of the corona is that it is caused by magnetic reconnection. Magnetic reconnection is a process where magnetic fields in the Sun’s atmosphere break and reconnect, releasing a large amount of energy. This energy could then heat up the corona. However, until now, there has been no direct evidence to support this theory.
The Parker Solar Probe has now provided the first direct evidence of magnetic reconnection in the Sun’s corona. In a paper published in the journal Nature, the Parker Solar Probe team reported that they had observed magnetic reconnection occurring in the corona. They were able to see this using the spacecraft’s FIELDS instrument, which measures the electric and magnetic fields in the Sun’s atmosphere.
The team observed a series of magnetic reconnection events in the corona, which they were able to track over several days. They found that these events were occurring at a much higher rate than they had expected, and that they were releasing a significant amount of energy. This energy could be enough to explain the high temperature of the corona.
The discovery of magnetic reconnection in the corona is a major breakthrough in our understanding of the Sun. It provides a direct link between the behavior of the magnetic fields in the Sun’s atmosphere and the high temperature of the corona. This could help us to better understand other phenomena that occur on the Sun, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
The Parker Solar Probe mission is still ongoing, and there is much more data to be collected and analyzed. The spacecraft will continue to make close passes of the Sun over the next few years, getting closer and closer to the surface of the Sun. This will allow scientists to gather even more detailed data about the Sun’s behavior and hopefully solve more of the mysteries that surround it.
In conclusion, the Parker Solar Probe has provided some much-needed answers to the mystery of the Sun’s corona. The discovery of magnetic reconnection in the corona is a major breakthrough in our understanding of the Sun, and it could have important implications for our understanding of other phenomena that occur on the Sun. The Parker Solar Probe mission is an important step forward in our quest to better understand the Sun and its role in our solar system.
