Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                               2019 December 9

                Looking Sideways from the Parker Solar Probe
     Video Credit: NASA, JHUAPL, Naval Research Lab, Parker Solar Probe

   Explanation: Everybody sees the Sun. Nobody's been there. Starting in
   2018 though, NASA launched the robotic Parker Solar Probe (PSP) to
   investigate regions near to the Sun for the first time. The PSP's
   looping orbit brings it yet closer to the Sun each time around -- every
   few months. The featured time-lapse video shows the view looking
   sideways from behind PSP's Sun shield during its first approach to the
   Sun a year ago -- to about half the orbit of Mercury. The PSP's Wide
   Field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR) cameras took the images over nine
   days, but they are digitally compressed here into about 14 seconds. The
   waving solar corona is visible on the far left, with stars, planets,
   and even the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy streaming by in the
   background as the PSP orbits the Sun. PSP has found the solar
   neighborhood to be surprisingly complex and to include switchbacks --
   times when the Sun's magnetic field briefly reverses itself. The Sun is
   not only Earth's dominant energy source, its variable solar wind
   compresses Earth's atmosphere, triggers auroras, affects power grids,
   and can even damage orbiting communication satellites.

                     Tomorrow's picture: satellite swarm
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

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