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Just a short break from the political madness to take note of an amazing achievement, as NASA’s Parker Solar Probe enters the outer reaches of the Sun’s gigantic many-layered atmosphere.

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.

The new milestone marks one major step for Parker Solar Probe and one giant leap for solar science. Just as landing on the Moon allowed scientists to understand how it was formed, touching the very stuff the Sun is made of will help scientists uncover critical information about our closest star and its influence on the solar system.

More information: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/nasa-enters-the-solar-atmosphere-for-the-first-time-bringing-new-discoveries

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

Scientists:
Nour Raouafi (Johns Hopkins University/APL)
Justin Kasper (University of Michigan)
Stuart Bale (University of California, Berkeley)
Kelly Korreck (Johns Hopkins University/APL)
Adam Szabo (NASA/GSFC)

Producer: Joy Ng (KBRwyle)
Writer: Mara Johnson-Groh (Wyle Information Systems)
Data Visualizer: Tom Bridgman (GST)

Animators:
Jonathan North (KBRwyle)
Ben Smith (Johns Hopkins APL)

This video can be freely shared and downloaded at https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14045. While the video in its entirety can be shared without permission, the music and some individual imagery may have been obtained through permission and may not be excised or remixed in other products. Specific details on such imagery may be found here: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/14045. For more information on NASA’s media guidelines, visit https://nasa.gov/multimedia/guidelines.

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