The Parker Solar Probe continues to wow astronomers, this time by flying directly through a coronal mass ejection (CME).
CMEs are extremely powerful solar events that occur whenever energy within the Sun becomes too much, thus causing it to be released and jetted from the Sun’s surface. These massive bursts of energy are behind geomagnetic storms like those we sometimes see here on Earth, and they’re similar to solar flares, though not quite the same.
The fact that the Parker Solar Probe has now flown through a CME is exciting because the spacecraft spent a total of two days inside the CME at roughly 5.7 million miles from the solar surface. That’s an extremely close distance, as Parker sits even closer to our Sun than Mercury, which rests 23 million miles from the Sun.revealed that Parker passed through the CME back in September, crossing through the wake of its leading edge – which is a massive shockwave.
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