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By NASA
7 min read
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Snaps Closest-Ever Images to Sun
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NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has taken the closest ever images to the Sun, captured just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface. The new close-up images show features in the solar wind, the constant stream of electrically charged subatomic particles released by the Sun that rage across the solar system at speeds exceeding 1 million miles an hour. These images, and other data, are helping scientists understand the mysteries of the solar wind, which is essential to understanding its effects at Earth. On its record-breaking pass by the Sun late last year, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe captured stunning new images from within the Sun’s atmosphere. These newly released images — taken closer to the Sun than we’ve ever been before — are helping scientists better understand the Sun’s influence across the solar system, including events that can affect Earth.
“Parker Solar Probe has once again transported us into the dynamic atmosphere of our closest star,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We are witnessing where space weather threats to Earth begin, with our eyes, not just with models. This new data will help us vastly improve our space weather predictions to ensure the safety of our astronauts and the protection of our technology here on Earth and throughout the solar system.”
Parker Solar Probe started its closest approach to the Sun on Dec. 24, 2024, flying just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface. As it skimmed through the Sun’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, in the days around the perihelion, it collected data with an array of scientific instruments, including the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe, or WISPR.
Parker Solar Probe has revolutionized our understanding of the solar wind thanks to the spacecraft’s many passes through the Sun’s outer atmosphere.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Joy Ng The new WISPR images reveal the corona and solar wind, a constant stream of electrically charged particles from the Sun that rage across the solar system. The solar wind expands throughout of the solar system with wide-ranging effects. Together with outbursts of material and magnetic currents from the Sun, it helps generate auroras, strip planetary atmospheres, and induce electric currents that can overwhelm power grids and affect communications at Earth. Understanding the impact of solar wind starts with understanding its origins at the Sun.
The WISPR images give scientists a closer look at what happens to the solar wind shortly after it is released from the corona. The images show the important boundary where the Sun’s magnetic field direction switches from northward to southward, called the heliospheric current sheet. It also captures the collision of multiple coronal mass ejections, or CMEs — large outbursts of charged particles that are a key driver of space weather — for the first time in high resolution.
“In these images, we’re seeing the CMEs basically piling up on top of one another,” said Angelos Vourlidas, the WISPR instrument scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which designed, built, and operates the spacecraft in Laurel, Maryland. “We’re using this to figure out how the CMEs merge together, which can be important for space weather.”
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This video, made from images taken by Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument during its record-breaking flyby of the Sun on Dec. 25, 2024, shows the solar wind racing out from the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Lab When CMEs collide, their trajectory can change, making it harder to predict where they’ll end up. Their merger can also accelerate charged particles and mix magnetic fields, which makes the CMEs’ effects potentially more dangerous to astronauts and satellites in space and technology on the ground. Parker Solar Probe’s close-up view helps scientists better prepare for such space weather effects at Earth and beyond.
Zooming in on Solar Wind’s Origins
The solar wind was first theorized by preeminent heliophysicist Eugene Parker in 1958. His theories about the solar wind, which were met with criticism at the time, revolutionized how we see our solar system. Prior to Parker Solar Probe’s launch in 2018, NASA and its international partners led missions like Mariner 2, Helios, Ulysses, Wind, and ACE that helped scientists understand the origins of the solar wind — but from a distance. Parker Solar Probe, named in honor of the late scientist, is filling in the gaps of our understanding much closer to the Sun.
At Earth, the solar wind is mostly a consistent breeze, but Parker Solar Probe found it’s anything but at the Sun. When the spacecraft reached within 14.7 million miles from the Sun, it encountered zig-zagging magnetic fields — a feature known as switchbacks. Using Parker Solar Probe’s data, scientists discovered that these switchbacks, which came in clumps, were more common than expected.
When Parker Solar Probe first crossed into the corona about 8 million miles from the Sun’s surface in 2021, it noticed the boundary of the corona was uneven and more complex than previously thought.
As it got even closer, Parker Solar Probe helped scientists pinpoint the origin of switchbacks at patches on the visible surface of the Sun where magnetic funnels form. In 2024 scientists announced that the fast solar wind — one of two main classes of the solar wind — is in part powered by these switchbacks, adding to a 50-year-old mystery.
However, it would take a closer view to understand the slow solar wind, which travels at just 220 miles per second, half the speed of the fast solar wind.
“The big unknown has been: how is the solar wind generated, and how does it manage to escape the Sun’s immense gravitational pull?” said Nour Rawafi, the project scientist for Parker Solar Probe at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. “Understanding this continuous flow of particles, particularly the slow solar wind, is a major challenge, especially given the diversity in the properties of these streams — but with Parker Solar Probe, we’re closer than ever to uncovering their origins and how they evolve.”
Understanding Slow Solar Wind
The slow solar wind, which is twice as dense and more variable than fast solar wind, is important to study because its interplay with the fast solar wind can create moderately strong solar storm conditions at Earth sometimes rivaling those from CMEs.
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This artist’s concept shows a representative state of Earth’s magnetic bubble immersed in the slow solar wind, which averages some 180 to 300 miles per second. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab Prior to Parker Solar Probe, distant observations suggested there are actually two varieties of slow solar wind, distinguished by the orientation or variability of their magnetic fields. One type of slow solar wind, called Alfvénic, has small-scale switchbacks. The second type, called non-Alfvénic, doesn’t show these variations in its magnetic field.
As it spiraled closer to the Sun, Parker Solar Probe confirmed there are indeed two types. Its close-up views are also helping scientists differentiate the origins of the two types, which scientists believe are unique. The non-Alfvénic wind may come off features called helmet streamers — large loops connecting active regions where some particles can heat up enough to escape — whereas Alfvénic wind might originate near coronal holes, or dark, cool regions in the corona.
In its current orbit, bringing the spacecraft just 3.8 million miles from the Sun, Parker Solar Probe will continue to gather additional data during its upcoming passes through the corona to help scientists confirm the slow solar wind’s origins. The next pass comes Sept. 15, 2025.
“We don’t have a final consensus yet, but we have a whole lot of new intriguing data,” said Adam Szabo, Parker Solar Probe mission scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
By Mara Johnson-Groh
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
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Last Updated Jul 10, 2025 Related Terms
Heliophysics Goddard Space Flight Center Heliophysics Division Missions NASA Centers & Facilities NASA Directorates Parker Solar Probe (PSP) Science & Research Science Mission Directorate Solar Wind Space Weather Explore More
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By NASA
Explore This Section Science Uncategorized Helio Highlights: May… Home Framework for Heliophysics Education About Helio Big Idea 1.1 Helio Big Idea 1.2 Helio Big Idea 1.3 Helio Big Idea 2.1 Helio Big Idea 2.2 Helio Big Idea 2.3 Helio Big Idea 3.1 Helio Big Idea 3.2 Helio Big Idea 3.3 Helio Missions Helio Topics Resource Database About NASA HEAT More Highlights Space Math 3 min read
Helio Highlights: May 2025
3 Min Read Helio Highlights: May 2025
A satellite image showing the extent of the Northern Lights during part of the Mother’s Day 2024 solar storms. Credits:
NOAA One year ago, solar storms lit up the night sky. Why?
The Sun is 93 million miles away from Earth, on average. Even though it’s far away, we can still see and feel its effects here. One of the most beautiful effects are the auroras – colorful lights that dance across the sky near the North and South Poles. These are also called the Northern and Southern Lights. They happen when tiny particles from the Sun hit gas molecules in our atmosphere and give off energy.
Sometimes the Sun becomes very active and sends out a lot more energy than normal. When this happens, we can see auroras in places much farther from the poles than normal. In May 2024, around Mother’s Day, the Sun sent powerful solar storms in the direction of Earth. These storms were also called the Gannon Storms, named after Jennifer Gannon, a scientist who studied space weather. The Northern Lights could be seen as far south as Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Mexico, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. The Southern Lights were also visible as far north as South Africa and New Zealand.
Aurora Borealis seen from British Columbia, Canada on May 10, 2024. NASA/Mara Johnson-Groh Scientists who study the Sun and its effects on our solar system work in a field called heliophysics. Their studies of the Sun have shown that it goes through cycles of being more active and less active. Each one of these cycles lasts about 11 years, but can be anywhere from 8 to 14 years long. This is called the Solar Cycle.
The middle of each cycle is called Solar Maximum. During this time, the Sun has more dark spots (called sunspots) and creates more space weather events. The big storms in May 2024 happened during the Solar Maximum for Solar Cycle 25.
On May 8 and 9, 2024, an active area on the Sun called AR3664 shot out powerful solar flares and several huge bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These CMEs headed straight for Earth. The first CME pushed aside the normal solar wind, making a clear path for the others to reach us faster. When all this energy hit our atmosphere, it created auroras much farther from the poles than usual. It was like the Sun gave the auroras a huge power boost!
Eruptions of Solar material into space as seen on May 7 (right) and May 8 (left), 2024. These types of eruptions often come just before a larger Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), including the ones which caused the Mother’s Day solar storms. NASA/SDO Auroras are beautiful to watch, but the space weather that creates them can also cause problems. Space weather can mess up radio signals, power grids, GPS systems, and satellites. During the May 2024 storms, GPS systems used by farmers were disrupted. Many farmers use GPS to guide their self-driving tractors. Since this happened during peak planting season, it may have cost billions of dollars in lost profit.
Because space weather can cause so many problems, scientists at NASA and around the world watch the Sun closely to predict when these events will happen. You can help too! Join local science projects at schools, teach others about the Sun, and help make observations in your area. All of this helps us to learn more about the Sun and how it affects our planet.
Here are some resources to connect you to the Sun and auroras
Lesson Plans & Educator Guides
Magnetic Mysteries: Sun-Earth Interactions
A 5E lesson for high school students to investigate the question of what causes aurora by using Helioviewer to examine solar activity.
Aurora Research and Heliophysics
Learn about aurora, how they form, and the different phases they go through, as well as heliophysics missions that study them.
How Earth’s Magnetic Field Causes Auroras
A 5E middle school lesson where students explore why our planet has a magnetic field (and other planets don’t) and what it is like.
Interactive Resources
Magnetic Earth
Introductory activity where users learn about the magnetic field that surrounds Earth and its role in creating the Northern Lights.
NOAA Aurora
30-Minute Forecast
An interactive aurora map for both hemispheres which allows users to predict the likelihood of auroras at different latitudes.
Webinars and Slide Decks
Space Weather
Basics
A slide deck (41 slides) that offers an elementary introduction to the basic features of space weather and its interactions with Earth’s magnetosphere and various technologies.
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By NASA
5 min read
How NASA’s SPHEREx Mission Will Share Its All-Sky Map With the World
NASA’s SPHEREx mission will map the entire sky in 102 different wavelengths, or colors, of infrared light. This image of the Vela Molecular Ridge was captured by SPHEREx and is part of the mission’s first ever public data release. The yellow patch on the right side of the image is a cloud of interstellar gas and dust that glows in some infrared colors due to radiation from nearby stars. NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s newest astrophysics space telescope launched in March on a mission to create an all-sky map of the universe. Now settled into low-Earth orbit, SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) has begun delivering its sky survey data to a public archive on a weekly basis, allowing anyone to use the data to probe the secrets of the cosmos.
“Because we’re looking at everything in the whole sky, almost every area of astronomy can be addressed by SPHEREx data,” said Rachel Akeson, the lead for the SPHEREx Science Data Center at IPAC. IPAC is a science and data center for astrophysics and planetary science at Caltech in Pasadena, California.
Almost every area of astronomy can be addressed by SPHEREx data.
Rachel Akeson
SPHEREx Science Data Center Lead
Other missions, like NASA’s now-retired WISE (Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer), have also mapped the entire sky. SPHEREx builds on this legacy by observing in 102 infrared wavelengths, compared to WISE’s four wavelength bands.
By putting the many wavelength bands of SPHEREx data together, scientists can identify the signatures of specific molecules with a technique known as spectroscopy. The mission’s science team will use this method to study the distribution of frozen water and organic molecules — the “building blocks of life” — in the Milky Way.
This animation shows how NASA’s SPHEREx observatory will map the entire sky — a process it will complete four times over its two-year mission. The telescope will observe every point in the sky in 102 different infrared wavelengths, more than any other all-sky survey. SPHEREx’s openly available data will enable a wide variety of astronomical studies. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech The SPHEREx science team will also use the mission’s data to study the physics that drove the universe’s expansion following the big bang, and to measure the amount of light emitted by all the galaxies in the universe over time. Releasing SPHEREx data in a public archive encourages far more astronomical studies than the team could do on their own.
“By making the data public, we enable the whole astronomy community to use SPHEREx data to work on all these other areas of science,” Akeson said.
NASA is committed to the sharing of scientific data, promoting transparency and efficiency in scientific research. In line with this commitment, data from SPHEREx appears in the public archive within 60 days after the telescope collects each observation. The short delay allows the SPHEREx team to process the raw data to remove or flag artifacts, account for detector effects, and align the images to the correct astronomical coordinates.
The team publishes the procedures they used to process the data alongside the actual data products. “We want enough information in those files that people can do their own research,” Akeson said.
One of the early test images captured by NASA’s SPHEREx mission in April 2025. This image shows a section of sky in one infrared wavelength, or color, that is invisible to the human eye but is represented here in a visible color. This particular wavelength (3.29 microns) reveals a cloud of dust made of a molecule similar to soot or smoke. NASA/JPL-Caltech This image from NASA’s SPHEREx shows the same region of space in a different infrared wavelength (0.98 microns), once again represented by a color that is visible to the human eye. The dust cloud has vanished because the molecules that make up the dust — polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — do not radiate light in this color. NASA/JPL-Caltech
During its two-year prime mission, SPHEREx will survey the entire sky twice a year, creating four all-sky maps. After the mission reaches the one-year mark, the team plans to release a map of the whole sky at all 102 wavelengths.
In addition to the science enabled by SPHEREx itself, the telescope unlocks an even greater range of astronomical studies when paired with other missions. Data from SPHEREx can be used to identify interesting targets for further study by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, refine exoplanet parameters collected from NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), and study the properties of dark matter and dark energy along with ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Euclid mission and NASA’s upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope.
The SPHEREx mission’s all-sky survey will complement data from other NASA space telescopes. SPHEREx is illustrated second from the right. The other telescope illustrations are, from left to right: the Hubble Space Telescope, the retired Spitzer Space Telescope, the retired WISE/NEOWISE mission, the James Webb Space Telescope, and the upcoming Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. NASA/JPL-Caltech The IPAC archive that hosts SPHEREx data, IRSA (NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive), also hosts pointed observations and all-sky maps at a variety of wavelengths from previous missions. The large amount of data available through IRSA gives users a comprehensive view of the astronomical objects they want to study.
“SPHEREx is part of the entire legacy of NASA space surveys,” said IRSA Science Lead Vandana Desai. “People are going to use the data in all kinds of ways that we can’t imagine.”
NASA’s Office of the Chief Science Data Officer leads open science efforts for the agency. Public sharing of scientific data, tools, research, and software maximizes the impact of NASA’s science missions. To learn more about NASA’s commitment to transparency and reproducibility of scientific research, visit science.nasa.gov/open-science. To get more stories about the impact of NASA’s science data delivered directly to your inbox, sign up for the NASA Open Science newsletter.
By Lauren Leese
Web Content Strategist for the Office of the Chief Science Data Officer
More About SPHEREx
The SPHEREx mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the agency’s Astrophysics Division within the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters. BAE Systems in Boulder, Colorado, built the telescope and the spacecraft bus. The science analysis of the SPHEREx data will be conducted by a team of scientists located at 10 institutions in the U.S., two in South Korea, and one in Taiwan. Caltech in Pasadena managed and integrated the instrument. The mission’s principal investigator is based at Caltech with a joint JPL appointment. Data will be processed and archived at IPAC at Caltech. The SPHEREx dataset will be publicly available at the NASA-IPAC Infrared Science Archive. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
To learn more about SPHEREx, visit:
https://nasa.gov/SPHEREx
Media Contacts
Calla Cofield
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
626-808-2469
calla.e.cofield@jpl.nasa.gov
Amanda Adams
Office of the Chief Science Data Officer
256-683-6661
amanda.m.adams@nasa.gov
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Last Updated Jul 02, 2025 Related Terms
Open Science Astrophysics Galaxies Jet Propulsion Laboratory SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe and Ices Explorer) The Search for Life The Universe Explore More
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