NASA’s solar probe snaps closest-ever picture of sun’s atmosphere

Earlier this year, NASA launched its solar probe aimed to fly really close to the sun and observe the star. The probe has recently sent back a picture showing us, for the first time ever, what it is like inside the sun’s atmosphere.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe flew extremely close to the sun, being within 15 million miles from the sun’s surface, way too closer than Mercury. Travelling at speed of 213,200mph – fastest any man-made spacecraft has ever traveled – the probe has sent back a picture of what the sun’s surface and outer atmosphere looks like.

As described by NASA, the image, captured by the probe’s WISPR instrument, shows a so-called coronal streamer crossing the ‘east limb of the sun’. Also, the big white spot shown in the middle is actually the planet Mercury in the background.

As described by Futurism, the corona is the sun’s outer atmosphere, whereas coronal streamers occur when more than the usual quantities of solar particles are released from the sun’s solar winds.

The goal of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is to know more about sun and answer questions like the hotness of corona, acceleration of solar winds and such. “Parker is an exploration mission — the potential for new discoveries is huge,” says Nour Raouafi, Parker Solar Probe project scientist.