a year ago, it sent NASA their Parks-the space probe toward the Sun. Spacecraft is already closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft has been before.
Now we have here on Earth for the first time received data from the Parks-spacecraft – data which deals with observations from the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona. It writes The Guardian according to the Science.dk, where you can also see a fascinating video of the researchers ‘ new discoveries.
First data-consignment offers hints about why the Sun’s atmosphere is a hundred times hotter than the surface of the planet – and where the so-called solar winds come from.
– the Data is spectacular. We can see the magnetic structures, as the corona is made of, and they tell us that solvindene occurs in the smaller holes in the corona, explains physicist at the University of California, Stuart Bale, to The Guardian according to the Science.dk.
so Far, researchers have observed solvindene from the Ground, where it was concluded that there is a fast and a slow solvind.
The rapid moves approximately 700 kilometers per second and comes from the gigantic holes in the corona at the Sun’s poles, The slow moving, with almost 500 kilometers per second, and so far, people have not known where it came from.
Parks-the spacecraft has now found out that the slow solvind has its starting point at the smaller holes in the corona, which is located around the Sun’s equator.
Holes in the corona is cooler and less compact areas, which allow the particles to pass and thereby form the winds.
These new observations were made when the spacecraft was about 24 million kilometres from the Sun.
In the course of the next six years, will spacecraft, which is about the size of a passenger car, moving ever closer and closer to the Sun. According to the plan, it will finally be just 6 million kilometres away from the surface of the Sun.
It may still sound like a great distance. But for comparison, it is 7 times closer than what you previously have managed – namely, with the Helios 2 spacecraft in 1976.
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