Solar Probe Plus

Interesting to see that the Parker Solar Probe has broken its own speed and distance record while in orbit around the sun.
 
Using data from NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP), a team led by Southwest Research Institute identified low-energy particles lurking near the Sun that likely originated from solar wind interactions well beyond Earth orbit. PSP is venturing closer to the Sun than any previous probe, carrying hardware SwRI helped develop. Scientists are probing the enigmatic features of the Sun to answer many questions, including how to protect space travelers and technology from the radiation associated with solar events.
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www.sciencedaily.com

Low-energy solar particles from beyond Earth found near the Sun

Scientists have identified low-energy particles lurking near the Sun that likely originated from solar wind interactions well beyond Earth orbit. NASA's Parker Solar Probe is venturing closer to the Sun than any previous probe. Scientists are probing the enigmatic features of the Sun to answer...
www.sciencedaily.com
 
Article about the WISPR instrument, especially its imaging of Venus.

phys.org

Peering through the clouds of Earth's 'Evil Twin' surprises NRL sky watchers

U.S. Naval Research Laboratory scientists were recently left scratching their heads over a familiar sight in the sky. Venus images are nothing new, but a solar probe surprised the researchers by seeing through the planet's clouds. NRL's Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) took a...
phys.org phys.org
 
Pristine PSP/WISPR Observations of the Circumsolar Dust Ring near Venus's Orbit

Abstract
The Parker Solar Probe mission (PSP) has completed seven orbits around the Sun. The Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR) on PSP consists of two visible light heliospheric imagers, which together image the interplanetary medium between 13
fdg
5 and 108° elongation. The PSP/WISPR nominal science observing window occurs during the solar encounters, which take place when the spacecraft (S/C) is within 0.25 au from the Sun. During Orbit 3, an extended science campaign took place while PSP transited between 0.5 and 0.25 au (during both inbound and outbound orbit segments). PSP mission operations implemented a variety of 180° S/C rolls about the S/C-Sun pointing axis during the extended science window. The vantage of the PSP location, combined with the different S/C roll orientations, allowed us to unveil a circumsolar dust density enhancement associated with Venus's orbit. Specifically, we observed an excess brightness band of about 1% at its center over the brightness of the background zodiacal light in all PSP/WISPR images obtained during the extended campaign. We explain this brightness band as due to an increase in the density of the circumsolar dust orbiting the Sun close to the Venusian orbit. The projected latitudinal extent of the ring is estimated at about 0.043 au ± 0.004 au, exhibiting an average density enhancement of the order of 10%. Here, we report and characterize the first comprehensive, pristine observations of the plane-of-sky projection of the dust ring in almost its full 360° longitudinal extension.


Source: https://gizmodo.com/in-a-scientific-first-astronomers-capture-a-complete-v-1846712924
 
Successful Eighth Solar Flyby for Parker Solar Probe

Sarah Frazier Posted on May 3, 2021

On May 2, 2021, at 3:00 a.m. EDT, mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, Maryland, received a “tone one” beacon from Parker Solar Probe, indicating that all systems were healthy and operating normally after the spacecraft’s eighth close approach to the Sun on April 29.

During this close pass by the Sun — called perihelion — Parker Solar Probe broke its own records for spacecraft distance from the Sun and speed, coming to within about 6.5 million miles (10.4 million kilometers) of the Sun’s surface, while moving faster than 330,000 miles per hour (532,000 kilometers per hour).

Science data collection for this solar encounter continues through May 4.

Successful Eighth Solar Flyby for Parker Solar Probe – Parker Solar Probe

blogs.nasa.gov blogs.nasa.gov
 
Successful Ninth Solar Flyby for Parker Solar Probe

Sarah Frazier Posted on August 13, 2021

On Aug. 13, 2021, at 5:50 a.m. EDT, mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, Maryland, received a “tone one” beacon from Parker Solar Probe, indicating that all systems were healthy and operating normally after the spacecraft’s ninth close approach to the Sun on Aug. 9.

During this close pass by the Sun — called perihelion — Parker Solar Probe matched its own records for spacecraft distance from the Sun and speed, coming to within about 6.5 million miles (10.4 million kilometers) of the Sun’s surface, while moving faster than 330,000 miles per hour (532,000 kilometers per hour).

Science data collection for this solar encounter continues through Aug. 15.

Successful Ninth Solar Flyby for Parker Solar Probe – Parker Solar Probe

blogs.nasa.gov blogs.nasa.gov
 
Flyaway said:
Successful Ninth Solar Flyby for Parker Solar Probe

Sarah Frazier Posted on August 13, 2021

On Aug. 13, 2021, at 5:50 a.m. EDT, mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, in Laurel, Maryland, received a “tone one” beacon from Parker Solar Probe, indicating that all systems were healthy and operating normally after the spacecraft’s ninth close approach to the Sun on Aug. 9.

During this close pass by the Sun — called perihelion — Parker Solar Probe matched its own records for spacecraft distance from the Sun and speed, coming to within about 6.5 million miles (10.4 million kilometers) of the Sun’s surface, while moving faster than 330,000 miles per hour (532,000 kilometers per hour).

Science data collection for this solar encounter continues through Aug. 15.

Successful Ninth Solar Flyby for Parker Solar Probe – Parker Solar Probe

blogs.nasa.gov blogs.nasa.gov
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Excellent news for the Parker Solar Probe, completed it’s ninth flyby of the Sun, I cannot wait to see what the science data is going to be when it is released now that the Sun is coming out of it’s long solar minimum.
 
NASA’s historic mission to “touch the Sun” has encountered a heavy bombardment of dust, surprising mission scientists and resulting in some fascinating new data about the Parker Solar Probe’s increasingly hostile environment.
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“These observations are ‘happy surprises’ in that the impact explosions produce clouds of material so dense that we can watch fundamental solar wind physics operate in a way that would not be possible otherwise,” David Malaspina, a research scientist from the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado, explained in an email. “They are also ‘happy surprises’ in that the impacts so far have not been large enough to overcome the dust impact shielding designed into much of the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft.”
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The total number of collisions now number in the tens of thousands, and the probe has endured intense periods during which it was struck by hypervelocity dust grains once every 12 seconds on average, according to Malaspina. Most impacts aren’t producing debris and dense plasma clouds, but the team did manage to identify around 250 very high-energy impacts that occurred during Parker’s first eight orbits of the Sun.
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That said, an energetic particle instrument is beginning to degrade; the impacts have punched a hole through the device, “allowing sunlight to reach the instrument’s sensitive detectors, and driving up their noise levels,” Malaspina explained. But he’s not worried. Even taking the greater density of dust into account, “the updated predictions for the probability of catastrophic failure suggest that there is a high probability—but not 100%—that Parker Solar Probe will survive all 24 planned orbits,” he said.
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gizmodo.com

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Is Getting Absolutely Clobbered by Dust

Dust grains traveling in excess of 7,000 miles per hour are now smashing into the probe around once every 15 seconds, sparking unexpected reactions.
gizmodo.com gizmodo.com
 
Parker Solar Probe Completes 12th Perihelion

Matching its own records for speed and distance to the Sun, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe completed its 12th close approach to the Sun on June 1, coming within 5.3 million miles (8.5 million kilometers) of the solar surface.

The close approach (known as perihelion) occurred at 6:50 p.m. EDT (10:50 p.m. UTC), with Parker Solar Probe moving about 364,660 miles per hour (586,860 kilometers per hour) – fast enough to cover the distance between Los Angeles and London in under a minute. The milestone also marked the midway point in the mission’s 12th solar encounter, which began May 27 and continues through June 7.

The spacecraft entered the encounter in good health, with all systems operating normally. Parker Solar Probe is scheduled to check back in with mission operators at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland – where it was also designed and built – on June 4.

Parker Solar Probe Completes 12th Perihelion – Parker Solar Probe

blogs.nasa.gov blogs.nasa.gov
 
Happy 4th birthday to @NASASun's Parker Solar Probe!

As it travels through the Sun's atmosphere, Parker has faced temperatures up to nearly 1500 F (800 C), space dust that could degrade materials and instruments, and intense light and high-speed particles from our Sun.
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1559246044050907137
View: https://twitter.com/NASAGoddard/status/1559246044050907137

Parker has handled the extreme conditions so well that the science team has collected nearly 3 times more data than they'd hoped for. Learn what's next for the intrepid solar explorer as it prepares for its 13th approach during an intense solar maximum:
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1559246072429613059
View: https://twitter.com/NASAGoddard/status/1559246072429613059
 
Parker Solar Probe’s Upcoming Close Encounter with a Highly Active Sun

Denise Hill Posted on August 31, 2022

NASA reported earlier this summer that Solar Cycle 25 is already exceeding predictions for solar activity, even with solar maximum not to come for another three years. In recent days, a sunspot the size of Earth has rapidly developed on the Sun, and the star has given off multiple solar flares and geomagnetic storms.

“The Sun has changed completely since we launched Parker Solar Probe during solar minimum when it was very quiet,” said Nour Raouafi, Parker Solar Probe project scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. “When the Sun changes, it also changes the environment around it. The activity at this time is way higher than we expected.”

Raouafi expects the high level of solar activity to continue as Parker approaches this perihelion, just 5.3 million miles from the Sun. The spacecraft has yet to fly through a solar event like a solar flare or a coronal mass ejection (CME) during one of its close encounters, but that may change this coming month. The resulting data would be groundbreaking.

“Nobody has ever flown through a solar event so close to the Sun before,” Raouafi said. “The data would be totally new, and we would definitely learn a lot from it.”

Though the spacecraft has not flown through a solar event, Parker’s Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR) instrument has imaged a small number of CMEs from a distance, including five during the spacecraft’s 10th encounter with the Sun in November 2021. These observations have already led to unexpected discoveries about the structure of CMEs.

All of Parker’s observations aid in the effort to understand the physics of the Sun, helping better predict space weather, which can affect electric grids, communications and navigation systems, astronauts and satellites in space, and more.

Although the Sun is much more active than during previous close encounters, Parker’s mission operators are not concerned about adverse effects to the spacecraft.

“Parker Solar Probe is built to withstand whatever the Sun can throw at it,” said Doug Rodgers, APL’s science operations center coordinator for the mission. “Every orbit is different, but the mission is a well-oiled machine at this point.”

While they will have very little contact with the spacecraft during its 10-day encounter, they have conducted routine operations to prepare, including readying the instruments, freeing up onboard memory space for new observations, and testing and pre-loading commands to operate the spacecraft while it’s out of contact. They have also coordinated observation times with Solar Orbiter, an ESA (European Space Agency)/NASA mission that will view the Sun from the same angle as Parker, but 58.5 million miles farther from the Sun’s surface.

Parker’s observations do not always overlap with those of other observatories, such as Solar Orbiter or Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A (STEREO-A), another NASA solar probe. But when they do, it offers significant advantages.

“By combining the data from multiple space missions and even ground observatories, we can understand the bigger picture,” Raouafi said. “In this case, with both Parker and Solar Orbiter observing the Sun from different distances, we will be able to study the evolution of the solar wind, gathering data as it passes one spacecraft and then the other.”

This is not the first time Parker and Solar Orbiter have been in alignment for one of Parker’s perihelions. Scientists have used data from previous alignments of the two spacecraft to produce multiple peer-reviewed papers on solar phenomena observed by both missions.

While this perihelion promises to be exciting due to high solar activity, Raouafi is already looking ahead to future close encounters.

“While the Sun was quiet, we did three years of great science,” he said. “But our view of the solar wind and the corona will be totally different now, and we’re very curious to see what we’ll learn next.”

Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA’s Living with a Star program to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. The Living with a Star program is managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Johns Hopkins APL designed, built, and operates the spacecraft.

Parker Solar Probe’s Upcoming Close Encounter with a Highly Active Sun – Parker Solar Probe

blogs.nasa.gov blogs.nasa.gov
 
A new video about the Parker Solar Probe's latest pass:


Discover the groundbreaking mission of NASA's Parker Solar Probe as it ventures closer to the Sun than any spacecraft before. Unveiling the secrets of our star, this remarkable probe has touched the Sun's upper atmosphere and unraveled the origins of the fast solar wind. Dive into the extraordinary findings and technological feats of this historic journey, revolutionizing our understanding of the Sun and its impact on Earth. Explore the implications for space weather prediction and the broader field of stellar physics. Join us on this captivating exploration of the Parker Solar Probe's remarkable mission.
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Venus may be a (slightly) gentler place than some scientists give it credit for.

In new research, space physicists at CU Boulder have jumped into a surprisingly long-running debate in solar system science: Does lightning strike on the second planet from the sun?

The team’s results add strong new evidence suggesting that, no, you probably wouldn’t see bolts of lightning flashing from Venus’ thick, acidic clouds—or, at least, not very often.
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…

When the researchers analyzed a set of those whistlers, however, they noticed something surprising: Venus’ whistler waves were headed the wrong way. They seemed to be moving down toward the planet, not out into space like you’d expect from a lightning storm.

“They were heading backward from what everybody had been imagining for the last 40 years,” Malaspina said.

What is causing these backward whistlers isn’t clear. George and Malaspina suspect that they may emerge from a phenomenon called magnetic reconnection—in which the twisting magnetic field lines that surround Venus come apart then snap back together with explosive results.
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www.colorado.edu

Does lightning strike on Venus? Maybe not, study suggests

Venus is a distinctly unfriendly planet, with crushing atmospheric pressures at the surface and temperatures that hit 900 degrees Fahrenheit. But new observations from scientists at CU Boulder suggest that frequent lightning strikes may not be one of the planet's hazards.
www.colorado.edu www.colorado.edu

Related paper:

 

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