Dec 5 - Sun News

December 5 Sun News by:

Artist’s concept of the Parker Solar Probe sweeping close to the sun. It's already breaking records, coming closer to the sun than any previous spacecraft. Built to withstand the sun's heat and radiation, it'll ultimately come within 4 million miles of the sun's surface. By contrast, Earth orbits 93 million miles away. Image via NASA. Read more.

Parker Solar Probe sheds light on our local star Scientists who study the sun are buzzing this week about 4 new papers published yesterday in Nature. The papers are based on data collected by the record-setting Parker Solar Probe mission - launched in 2018 - during the spacecraft’s first 2 close sweeps past our parent star in late 2018 and early 2019. These early studies, the scientists say, provide insights into the 2 fundamental questions the Parker Solar Probe mission was designed to answer. First, defying all logic, why does the sun's outer atmosphere - or corona - become much, much hotter the farther it stretches from the sun’s surface? Second, what accelerates the solar wind - a supersonic stream of protons, electrons and other particles - emanating from the corona and permeating the entire solar system? Read more.  How does the solar wind affect Earth? Why should we care about the new findings - released this week - from NASA's Parker Solar Probe? This new NASA video explains. Get ready for the Venus-Saturn conjunction Soon, Saturn and Venus will meet in the west after sunset. Guy Ottewell offers insights and charts to prepare you for this encounter between worlds. Read more.

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Tonight … Orion the Hunter and the Milky Way The constellation Orion is very easy to find. If you have a dark sky, you can also see the luminous band of the Milky Way running behind it. Read more.

Parker Solar Probe sheds light on our local star View larger. | Isn't this beautiful? It's an illustration of our sun - our local star - with its wispy outer atmosphere, or corona, extending into space. Mysteriously, the corona is hotter than the sun's surface. Image via NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Lisa Poje/Genna Duberstein. Read more. Submit your photo to EarthSky here! Did a friend forward EarthSkyNews to you? Click here to get your own subscription!

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