NASA’s Parker probe reveals the sun’s rogue plasma waves and magnetic islands
Rogue plasma waves. Floating magnetic islands. Showers of charged particles. These are just some of the things NASA’s Parker Solar Probe witnessed during its first two intimate encounters with the sun. Parker is on a nearly seven-year mission to repeatedly soar near the sun and gather intel on mysteries that have plagued solar physicists for decades (SN: 7/5/18). By flying a robotic craft through the tenuous plasma emanating from the sun, researchers hope to figure out such puzzlers as why the sun’s atmosphere is millions of degrees Celsius hotter than its surface and what powers the solar wind, the stream of charged particles that blows outward through the solar system. Mission scientists aren’t ready to answer those questions yet. But data from the probe’s first two orbits, published online December 4 in four papers in Nature, offer a sneak peek at what’s to come as Parker moves closer to the sun over the next several years. “We’re exploring a brand-new region,” says...