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NASA recently released some pretty cool footage of one of their spacecrafts traveling through what they’re labelling “one of the most powerful” sun explosions ever recorded. The spacecraft, named the Parker Solar Probe, recently flew through a powerful eruption from the sun and helped scientists prove a theory that has been around for decades.
Luckily, the solar probe was able to survive the journey and even captured video of this rare event. This is an incredible feat of engineering and a great success for the scientific community.
What Is A Coronal Mass Ejection?
A coronal mass ejection (CME) is basically an eruption of plasma in the sun’s outer atmosphere.
When these occur, they can disrupt satellite communications, navigation systems, and even cause power outages on Earth.
Scientists have long theorized that CMEs interact with interplanetary dust particles such as those from asteroids and comets.
This theory was proposed in 2003 by a paper published by Guillermo Stenborg, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
Parker Solar Probe Collects Unique Data From The Sun’s Atmosphere
Guillermo Stenborg, an astrophysicist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), was the lead author of a paper discussing what data was collected by the Parker Solar Probe during its mission to fly through one of the most powerful CMEs ever recorded.
He said that it showed exactly what they had theorized two decades ago – that CMEs are capable of displacing dust particles outward from the sun as far as 6 million miles away!
Thanks to this data collected by the Parker Solar Probe, researchers now have better predictions regarding when CMEs may reach Earth and how fast they will travel.
The probe continues its mission to explore more about our closest star – so far it has travelled closer to its surface than any other spacecraft before it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF_e5eYgJ3Y
