Parker Solar Probe Touches the Sun

For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun’s upper atmosphere – the corona – and sampled particles and magnetic fields there. Touching the Sun is helping scientists uncover critical information about our closest star and its influence on the solar system. As it circles closer to the solar surface, Parker Solar Probe – built and operated by Johns Hopkins APL - is making discoveries that other spacecraft were too far away to see, including from within the solar wind – the flow of particles leaving the Sun that can influence us at Earth. In 2019, Parker Solar Probe discovered that striking magnetic zig-zag structures in solar wind, called switchbacks, are plentiful close to the Sun. Halving the distance to the Sun since then, Parker Solar Probe has now identified one place where those features originate: the solar surface. The first passage through the corona – as well as more flybys to come – will continue t