WASHINGTON, D.C: NASA has released the closest-ever images of the sun, captured by its Parker Solar Probe from a record distance of just 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometres), offering critical insights into the solar wind and its effects on Earth.
The images, taken during a flyby on 24 December 2024, were made public this week and are providing scientists with unprecedented views of solar activity.
According to Live Science, these images are helping researchers unravel long-standing mysteries about the origins of the solar wind — a continuous stream of charged particles that flows from the sun’s outer atmosphere, known as the corona.
This flow of solar material is responsible for various space weather phenomena, including auroras and powerful electromagnetic storms that can disrupt satellites, interfere with communications, and damage power grids on Earth.
“The big unknown has been: how is the solar wind generated, and how does it manage to escape the Sun’s immense gravitational pull?” said Nour Rawafi, project scientist for the Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, in a statement.
“Understanding this continuous flow of particles, particularly the slow solar wind, is a major challenge.”
There are two types of solar wind: fast and slow. While the fast solar wind, travelling at speeds up to 800 kilometres per second, is relatively consistent and well-understood, the slower wind is denser, more turbulent, and unpredictable.
For years, scientists have struggled to explain how the slow wind forms and escapes the sun’s gravity.
The new data confirms that the slow solar wind is not a single stream, but consists of two types — Alfvénic and non-Alfvénic. The former contains magnetic field reversals called switchbacks, while the latter does not.
According to NASA, the Alfvénic wind likely originates from coronal holes — cooler, less dense regions of the sun — whereas non-Alfvénic wind may be linked to magnetic loops called helmet streamers in hotter zones.
“We don’t have a final consensus yet, but we have a whole lot of new intriguing data,” said Adam Szabo, mission scientist for the Parker Solar Probe at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
The images also show complex interactions between solar wind and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — large eruptions of plasma and magnetic fields. “In these images, we’re seeing the CMEs basically piling up on top of one another,” said Angelos Vourlidas,
WISPR instrument scientist at Johns Hopkins. “We’re using this to figure out how the CMEs merge together, which can be important for space weather forecasting.”
Launched in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe is the first spacecraft to fly directly through the sun’s corona. It is equipped with advanced scientific instruments including the Wide Field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR) and the Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons (SWEAP) suite.
Designed to withstand extreme temperatures and radiation, the unmanned spacecraft continues to collect high-resolution data from the sun’s immediate environment.
The probe’s previous observations, taken at 14.7 million miles (23.6 million kilometres), had already revealed signs of turbulence in the solar wind through zigzagging magnetic fields — now confirmed to play a role in driving fast winds.
The Parker Solar Probe is scheduled to make its next perihelion — its closest approach to the sun — on 15 September 2025, as it continues its historic mission to decode the mysteries of our nearest star.
