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First look at the solar wind sources

2019-12-05T16:07:52.445Z


Thanks to the NASA Parker probe (ANSA)


Discovered the sources of the solar wind: the swarms of charged particles continuously emitted by the Sun can reach speeds higher than those observed so far and are accelerated by the magnetic field. It is one of the first results of NASA's Parker probe, published in two articles in the journal Nature.



The data underlying the research is based on observations made by the Parker spacecraft from a record distance of 24 million kilometers. The probe has indeed entered history in 2018 for being the vehicle that more than any other has approached the Sun. The observations made so far remotely had allowed us to reconstruct only some of the mechanisms underlying the formation of the outermost part of the atmosphere of the Sun, the crown, but there were still many open questions.



Analyzing data from the Parker mission, the University of Michigan team led by Justin Kasper observed that it is the changes that occur in magnetic fields that accelerate the solar wind.



The second study coordinated by Stuart Bale of the University of California at Berkeley, focused instead on the so-called 'slow wind', which blows less than 500 kilometers per second, discovering that it originates in the crown holes near the solar equator. "Now we can observe the magnetic structures of the solar corona, which show us how the solar wind emerges from small coronal holes," said Bale.

The Parker spacecraft will continue to move closer to the Sun and it is expected that in the next five years it will be only six million kilometers from the Sun. The waiting for the data that can continue to collect is great, considering that the Sun should enter the most important phase active in its cycle.

Source: ansa

All tech articles on 2019-12-05

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