5 New Discoveries from NASA's Parker Solar Probe

NASA's Parker Solar Probe mission has returned unprecedented data from near the Sun, culminating in new discoveries published on Dec. 4, 2019, in the journal Nature. Among the findings are new understandings of how the Sun's constant outflow of material, the solar wind, behaves. Seen near Earth -- where it can interact with our planet's natural magnetic field and cause space weather effects that interfere with technology -- the solar wind appears to be a relatively uniform flow of plasma. But Parker Solar Probe's observations reveal a complicated, active system not seen from Earth. Music Credit: Smooth as Glass by The Freeharmonic Orchestra Video Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Karen Fox (ADNET): Writer Sarah Frazier (ADNET): Writer Genna Duberstein (USRA): Producer Genna Duberstein (USRA): Editor Chris Smith (USRA): Narrator Adriana Manrique Gutierrez (USRA): Animator Jonathan North (USRA): Animator Scott Wiessinger (USRA): Animator Adam Szabo (NASA/GSFC): Scientist Russ Howard (NRL): Scientist Dave McComas (SwRI): Scientist Stuart Bale (University of California, Berkeley): Scientist Justin Kasper (University of Michigan): Scientist Nour Raouafi (Johns Hopkins University/APL): Scientist Eric Christian Ph.D. (NASA/HQ): Scientist Adam Szabo (NASA/GSFC): Project Support Please give credit for this item to: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center