By Leah Crane.
An illustration of a solar probe.
The NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
NASA's solar probe reached out to our star and touched its atmosphere. The corona is the upper atmosphere of the sun. The milestone was announced at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in New Orleans.
The sun's corona is just enough away from the sun's centre to not trap material on the star, because of its gravity and magnetic field no longer being dominant. The critical surface is what the solar probe crossed in April to get to the corona.
Humans have only been able to observe this atmosphere from afar for centuries. In a press conference, the director of NASA's Heliophysics Division said that they have finally arrived. The sun has been touched by humanity.
The corona was only 13 million kilometres from the centre of the sun when the spacecraft entered it. After about five hours, the spacecraft exited the corona, only to reenter and exit again before continuing on its path. It may have passed through again in August, but the data hasn't yet been analysed.
The daring plan to touch the sun is inside Mission Icarus.
Researchers were unsure of how far from the sun the critical surface would be, but they knew that it could be measured by changes in the magnetic field and a slowing of the solar wind below the surface. The critical surface of the sun was shown to be wrinkled by the measurement of theParker Solar Probe.
Studying this surface could help us understand how the sun spits out charged particles that can pose issues for satellites and space explorers. It is a step towards understanding other stars. Kelly Korreck said during the press conference that these are stellar phenomena.
The probe is going to break its own records for the fastest- moving and closest to the sun. Researchers will keep working on the many mysteries of the star after we touched it.
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