NASA's Parker solar probe captures closest-ever picture of Sun
New Delhi : NASA has launched the Parker solar probe on August 12, this year and now, the probe has captured the closest-ever image of the Sun's corona, when it was about 27.1 million km from the Sun's surface.
The new image of Sun shows a coronal streamer, which is a structure of made solar material in the Corona that usually overlie regions of increased solar activity. The fine structure of the streamer is very clear, with at least two rays visible.
The bright object in the image is Mercury while the dark areas are results of background correction by the camera, according to NASA's website.
"Parker Solar Probe is providing us with the measurements essential to understanding solar phenomena that have been puzzling us for decades," Nour Raouafi, Parker Solar Probe project scientist said.
Scientists at NASA say that Parker Solar Probe is designed to find answers to questions about the physical properties of the Sun. The Probe will also investigate on how the corona is heated to temperatures about 300 times higher than the visible surface below.
To inform, Parker Solar Probe is the first spacecraft to be named after a living person, astrophysicist Eugene Parker, 91, who first described the solar wind in 1958.
NASA's solar probe went extremely close to the Sun, breaking its previous distance record of 42.72 million km and is considered to be the fastest man-made spacecraft.
