An Earth-moving mission from NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP) has successfully travelled through solar wind for the very first time, with aims of preventing a global broadband blackout. Scientists have issued numerous warnings about the potential consequences of a solar storm - which could strike within the next decade or so.
The spacecraft, which launched five years ago, embarked on a remarkable journey close to the sun's surface - where solar winds are generated. The wind consists of a continuous stream of charged particles which emanate from the sun's corona.
And despite extreme heat and intense radiation, the Parker persevered to gather crucial, never before discovered insights into the inner workings of the closet star to the Earth. Professor Stuart Bale, who is the lead author of the study - and also affiliated with the California University - explained the vital importance of understanding solar winds.
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The Mirror reports that he said: "Winds carry lots of information from the sun to Earth. So understanding the mechanism behind the sun's wind is important for practical reasons on Earth. That's going to affect our ability to understand how the sun releases energy and drives geomagnetic storms - which are a threat to our communication networks."
Such an event could leave people completely cut off from internet access for months or even years, with satellites and power lines being rendered useless, leaving them dormant. The PSP detected solar wind with unparalleled detail through its advanced instrumentation, uncovering crucial information which is lost as the wind leaves the corona as photons and electrons.
The team of stateside researchers likened the experience to 'seeing jets of water emanating from a showerhead through the blast of water hitting you in the face'. The findings allowed scientists to identify a phenomenon dubbed 'supergranulation flows' within coronal holes, where magnetic fields emerge.
These regions are suggested to serve as origin points for the high-speed solar winds, which are typically found at the sun's poles during quieter periods. Thus, the holes do not directly impact the Earth.
However, it is reported that during the sun's active phase - which comes every 11 years - the holes appear across the sun's surface and generate bursts of solar wind towards our planet, due to a flipping magnetic field. The insights gained from the PSP mission, which were published in the journal Nature, will help predict solar storms.
Although these can produce stunning auroras, they have the capability of wreaking havoc on satellites and electrical grids. The study revealed that the coronal holes act as showerheads, with jets emerging from bright sports where magnetic field lines funnel in and out of the sun's surface.
When the oppositely directed magnetic fields traverse these funnels, which can in some cases span 18,000 miles, they have the ability of breaking, reconnecting and propelling charged particles away from the sun. Professor Bale, went on: "The photosphere is covered by convection cells, like in a boiling pot of water, and the larger scale convection flow is called supergranulation.
"Where these supergranulation cells meet and go downward, they drag the magnetic field in their path into this downward kind of funnel. The magnetic field becomes very intensified there because it's just jammed. It's kind of a scoop of magnetic field going down into a drain.
"And the spatial separation of those little drains, those funnels, is what we're seeing now with solar probe data."
The Parker Probe's instruments also noticed a presence of extreme high-energy particles moving up to 100 times faster than the solar wind, with researches concluding that this unique flow can only be formed through magnetic reconnection. Launched August 12, 2018, the Parker continues to make repeated and progressively closer passes of the sun.
It travels at a rapid 320,000mph while gathering measurements of the solar environment, protected by a thick heat shield - using a swift entry and exit strategy.
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