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One Year of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe

Parker Solar Probe view of solar wind November 2018
The Parker Solar Probe's WISPR instrument saw the solar wind streaming past during the spacecraft's first solar encounter in November 2018.

In the year since its launch, the Parker Solar Probe has collected a host of scientific data from two close passes of the Sun.

In this image, the craft’s WISPR instrument saw the solar wind streaming past during the spacecraft’s first solar encounter in November 2018.

The spacecraft carries four suites of scientific instruments to gather data on the particles, solar wind plasma, electric and magnetic fields, solar radio emission, and structures in the Sun’s hot outer atmosphere, the corona. This information will help scientists unravel the physics driving the extreme temperatures in the corona — which is counterintuitively hotter than the solar surface below — and the mechanisms that drive particles and plasma out into the solar system.

Image Credit: NASA/Naval Research Laboratory/Parker Solar Probe