We started our journey to Sun through the Parker Solar Probe. We have discussed its mission details and trajectory in previous articles. In today’s article, we will discuss the important experiments and findings.
Major Experiments:
- Electromagnetic Fields Investigation (FIELDS) – This investigation will make direct measurements of electric and magnetic fields, radio waves, absolute plasma density, and electron temperature.
- Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (ISIS) This investigation will measure energetic electrons, protons and heavy ions.
- Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR) – These optical telescopes will acquire images of the corona and inner heliosphere.
- Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons (SWEAP) – This investigation will count the electrons, protons and helium ions, and measure their properties such as velocity, density, and temperature.
Important Findings
- Parker discovered evidence of a cosmic dust free zone of 3.5 million miles (5.6 million kilometres) radius from the Sun, due to vaporisation of cosmic dust particles by the Sun’s radiation.
- The probe observed approximately a thousand “rogue” magnetic waves in the solar atmosphere that instantly increase solar winds by as much as 300,000 miles per hour (480,000 km/h) and in some cases completely reverse the local magnetic field.
- The reversals in the Sun’s magnetic field are often associated with localized enhancements in the radial component of the plasma velocity (the velocity in the direction away from the Sun’s centre).
With this, we come to the end of the discussion related to Parker Solar Probe, in our next series we will start afresh with a new probe to explore. Till then take care!!
References:
- https://www.space.com/40437-parker-solar-probe.html
- https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/parker-solar-probe
- http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIELDS
- http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/The-Mission/index.php
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe
- https://www.space.com/parker-solar-probe-spotted-stealth-sun-eruption.html
- https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/parker-solar-probe-humanity-s-first-visit-to-a-star
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe#/media/File:Magnificent_CME_Erupts_on_the_Sun_-_August_31.jpg
