NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Reveals Solar Eruption Process
(MENAFN) NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has made a landmark discovery by directly observing a crucial solar process that powers intense eruptions capable of crippling Earth’s technology infrastructure. This breakthrough could revolutionize the forecasting of space weather events threatening satellites, communication networks, and power grids.
The findings, detailed in Nature Astronomy and spotlighted by online news platform on Wednesday, focus on magnetic reconnection—a phenomenon where magnetic field lines in plasma snap and reconnect, releasing vast amounts of energy. While previously studied within Earth’s magnetosphere, witnessing this event on the Sun was only achievable through the probe’s daring mission into the solar atmosphere, according to the news platform.
In September 2022, the Parker Solar Probe recorded an enormous solar eruption, collecting detailed plasma and magnetic field data that confirmed this long-hypothesized process. Complementary data was provided by the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter.
“We’ve been developing the theory of magnetic reconnection for almost 70 years, so we had a basic idea of how different parameters would behave,” said Dr. Ritesh Patel, lead author and research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute.
“The measurements and observations received from the encounter have validated numerical simulation models that have existed for decades within some degree of uncertainty. The data will serve as strong constraints for future models and provide a path to understand PSP's solar measurements from other timeframes and events.”
The research indicates that these insights from the probe could play a critical role in protecting vital infrastructure and maintaining communication systems during powerful solar storms.
"Since the late 1990s, we have been able to identify reconnection in the solar corona through imaging and spectroscopy. In situ detection was possible in Earth's magnetosphere with the launch of missions like NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission. Similar studies in the solar corona, however, only became possible when NASA's Parker Solar Probe launched in 2018," Patel added.
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