HOW NASA LAUNCHED A MAN MADE OBJECT INTO THE SUN
In a first for humanity, a manmade spacecraft has kissed the Sun.
NASA’s audacious Parker Solar Probe achieved the scientific first after three years and five Venus flybys, entering the Sun’s atmosphere on April 28, 2021.
Not only does this milestone provide us with deeper insights into our Sun’s evolution and its impacts on our Solar System, but everything we learn about our own star also teaches us more about stars in the rest of the universe.
NASA only learning about this incredible feat now because it needed the intervening months to confirm they had actually done it.
Already, this achievement is serving up serious insight into the Sun. The probe confirmed the Sun’s atmosphere isn’t uniform in shape, it flows with peaks and valleys that the probe passed through repeatedly.
In its fly-through, the probe discovered two strange solar weather phenomena: a source of solar wind, known as switchbacks, and a pseudostreamer.
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