NASA publishes highly-detailed imagery from Parker Solar Probe's closest-ever approach to the Sun
They were taken last December, when the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Parker Solar Probe made its closest approach to the Sun.
The probe passed by within 6.2 million kilometres of the Sun — the first time it had got so close to the solar star.
And while it has since made two more close approaches to the Sun, we're only now seeing the incredibly detailed imagery from that first trip now.
"The amount of clarity and the amount of details that we got from Parker Solar Probe is totally unprecedented," Parker Solar Probe project scientist Nour Rawafi said.
"But also we see phenomena that you didn't really see before and that's where the fun begins."
What you're looking at is solar wind spewing out from the solar atmosphere — called the corona — and onwards into our solar system.
The imagery shows a stream of electrically charged particles spewing out from the Sun in huge bursts.
Scientists call these coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
And the images from the Parker Probe show us those events in high definition for the first time.
The imagery was captured with the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe, which has been nicknamed WISPR.
"We're seeing the CMEs basically piling up on top of one another," WISPR instrument scientist Angelos Vourlidas said in a NASA article.
The yellow dotted lines in these images highlight three different CMEs.
It also shows something called heliospheric current sheet.
That's the boundary where the direction of the Sun's magnetic field switches from north to south.
While the imagery is spectacular to look at, the whole mission isn't about capturing cool videos from space.
The idea is that learning more about the Sun will help scientists better prepare us for the impacts of space events have on Earth.
It's a term for things that happen outside the Earth's atmosphere which impact the near-Earth space environment and our technology here on Earth.
And it's not just something NASA thinks about.
Here in Australia, the Bureau of Meteorolgy has a special department dedicated to it, called the Australian Space Weather Forecasting Centre (ASWFC).
"The primary source of space weather is the Sun, with the greatest disturbances usually caused by solar flares and subsequent geomagnetic storms," the ASWFC website says.
Space weather events like CMEs can lead to what's called geomagnetic storms, the phenomena that causes the aurora australis (or the aurora borealis if you're in the Northern Hemisphere).
The centre monitors and forecasts space weather conditions, which include solar activity, and geophysical and ionospheric conditions.
One function of the ASWFC is putting out geomagnetic storm alerts, which aurora chasers use so they can set themselves up to take stunning photos like this one.
if you're interested, you sign up to the ASWFC alerts via this online portal, you'll get an email next time an aurora might be brewing.
But space weather is not just about pretty lights.
Severe solar weather can create a whole lot of problems on Earth.
"It offers serious threats to increasingly complex communications and technological systems," the ASWFC's website explains.
"Space weather disturbances can interrupt HF radio, damage power grids, threaten satellite transmissions and instruments, including avionics in extreme circumstances, and reduce the life of satellites in low earth orbits."
This can translate to things like navigational issues for pilots, hampering communications with emergency services and, in some cases, cause power outages.
"Our ability to observe and monitor solar activity is crucial," the ASWFC says in a fact sheet.
It points to a CME in July 2012 which impacted a NASA satellite, but thankfully missed Earth.
"A 2013 study estimated that the USA would have suffered between $600 billion and $2.6 trillion in damages, mainly to electrical infrastructure, if this coronal mass ejection had been directed towards the Earth," the fact sheet said.
"We are witnessing where space weather threats to Earth begin, with our eyes, not just with models," NASA's Nicky Fox said.
"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."
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Sydney Morning Herald
a day ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
Sheridan Adams scored the gig of a lifetime. Then, she vanished
Hundreds of kilometres above where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet, science teacher-turned-astronaut Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger woke to the sounds of Defying Gravity. It was April 9, 2010, and NASA's STS-131 crew, which had successfully docked Space Shuttle Discovery with the International Space Station two days prior, would be conducting the first of three spacewalks on the two-week mission. That flight controllers down in Houston, Texas had pressed play on the Stephen Schwartz tune for those in orbit would not be surprising to fans of Wicked. Pun aside, what better way to capture a 'thrillifying' venture into the vacuum of space, sans spacecraft, than with a power ballad including lyrics 'everyone deserves the chance to fly' and 'they'll never bring us down'? Like a spacewalk is the apex of an astronaut's career, performing the role of Elphaba Thropp is a thespian's pinnacle. Securing the gig is not easy; expertly navigating the soaring belts and contrasting growls of what's commonly considered one of the most challenging songs to sing, while literally flying across the stage strapped to a hydraulic lift system, is only part of what's required to credibly portray the captivating, complicated and universally beloved character night after night. From the moment a casting director decides an actress has the chops to pull it off, her life has been irrevocably changed. A role of such magnitude is not something one simply walks away from. Unless you have no choice. Something bad was happening to Sheridan Adams. After 16 months touring as Elphaba across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane with rave reviews, Perth audiences finally got the chance to see Adams, and Courtney Monsma 's Galinda 'Glinda' Upland, up close in December. But Adams' first performance in the West Australian capital would ultimately be her last, despite the season booked until February plus a planned encore in Singapore. Loading It started, weeks earlier, in Brisbane; Adams would rush on-stage in green paint, knitted cap atop her head and suitcase in-hand, and proceed to perform a show where her voice was 'the best it had ever been'. But sometimes, the opposite would be true. 'I knew something was awry, but I had no idea that it was an injury,' Adams tells me in between sips from a water bottle seemingly bigger than her head. By the time the 27-year-old Melburnian whisked out of the wings at Crown Theatre Perth's opening night, it was with the definitive knowledge that something was terribly wrong. Nonetheless, the show would go on. Adams completed the almost three-hour-long performance. Then, she vanished. What was wrong with Adams is something that's 'not the end of the world', as she takes great pains to tell me, when it comes to the wider context of, well, current events. But for someone whose lifeline relies on the use of their instrument, an extensive vocal injury can feel world-ending. 'Because it had never happened to me before, and it's not spoken about, it was really hard. I went to a very dark place.' Sheridan Adams What happened to Sheridan Adams? 'It's quite traumatic. It's quite difficult because [your voice is] a part of you, it's often a part of your identity,' Adams says. 'When that's taken away, you really have to rediscover who you are and rediscover what your relationship is with your voice.' It's estimated that more than 25 per cent of Broadway performers have been diagnosed with a vocal injury during a show's run. It's rare, however, for a performer to take extended time off, and rarer for a vocal injury to be cited as the reason. Adams says Megan Hilty, who recently disclosed she would be taking a leave of absence from Broadway's Death Becomes Her due to vocal injury, inspired her to speak out. With the support of production company Crossroads Live Australia, Adams' team and her loved ones, Adams spent months away from the stage, recovering from what she describes as a muscle bleed in her larynx. Symptoms can include hoarseness, pain while swallowing, frequent coughing, voice breaks, and more. Loading 'It was really daunting and really scary ... I've never been in a show like this before. I'd never had a lead role like this,' says Adams, whose experience before her casting was mainly college productions, fringe shows and professional ensemble or cover roles. 'Because it had never happened to me before, and it's not spoken about, it was really hard. I went to a very dark place.' I'm not good enough, I'm letting people down, I'm not going to be able to do this ever again constantly rang in Adams' head. Fellow performers reassured Adams a return to work is possible, privately disclosing their own previous vocal injuries. Laser surgery, steroid injections, yoga and 'a lot of silence and not talking' were essential for Adams' rehabilitation. As was deleting social media. It's all about popular It's safe to say the role of Elphaba comes with baggage; Wicked has been a consistent box office smash since the stage show opened at Gershwin Theatre in 2003. But before Jon M. Chu's film, its fandom was mainly kept to those who had the means to get themselves to New York, London or a touring production, or crafty theatre nerds who knew the secret two-word code that unlocks a bounty of YouTube bootlegs. Once Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande 's casting was announced, that changed. Suddenly, the intense passion, and ownership, over the story, songs and characters were no longer limited to the fringe. From LEGO sets, hairbrushes and pyjamas in store windows to social media, Adams couldn't walk down the street or open her phone without seeing Wicked. Algorithms were suddenly flooded with footage and fan-art of Erivo and Grande – and, as anticipation amped during the film's globe-trotting press tour, of past and present cast from stage productions beyond Broadway and the West End, including Australia's Adams and Monsma. 'It was like my workplace was following me everywhere I went,' says Adams, who found it 'exciting' as someone who had realised she wanted to pursue acting through song mid- Over the Rainbow while auditioning for the role of Dorothy Gale in a high-school production of The Wizard of Oz. But it also meant that four weeks after Erivo and Grande walked the Yellow Brick Road in Sydney, anyone with an internet connection noticed when, 14 years after she last played the part, Wicked alumna Patrice Tipoki flew into Perth for an emergency cover of Elphaba. Comments from fans asking where Adams was, no matter how well meaning, were particularly hard for her to read. Loading 'I didn't talk to anyone about it,' Adams says. 'I really secluded and isolated myself from the world and from everyone.' Trusting her instincts, closing her eyes, and taking a leap In what made for an awkward conundrum in London on the night of Queen Elizabeth II's death, Wicked opens with the jubilant exclamation: 'Good news, she's dead!' This weekend, however, audiences in Seoul will instead see Monsma's Glinda and the cast of Wicked 'rejoicifying' the return of their Elphaba, with Adams taking the stage in the role for the first time in eight months. Similar to her first turn as the 'Wicked Witch of the West', Adams will be halfway through the show's South Korea tour when Wicked: For Good is released in cinemas this November. What's different is that now, in addition to her regular hydration and steaming routine, Adams is equipped with a series of semi-occluded vocal tract exercises, and a new perspective on vocal rest – helped, in part, by the fact she will perform six shows a week, with Zoe Coppinger performing the remaining two in South Korea. 'Coming back from this, it's probably been the hardest and most rewarding thing I've ever done in my entire life,' says Adams, fresh off her first week of rehearsals. 'If you're going through this, you're not alone ... it doesn't mean that you're not a good singer … or that there's something wrong with you. It happens, and you can come back, and you can step back into a role like Elphaba.'
The Age
a day ago
- The Age
Sheridan Adams scored the gig of a lifetime. Then, she vanished
Hundreds of kilometres above where the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet, science teacher-turned-astronaut Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger woke to the sounds of Defying Gravity. It was April 9, 2010, and NASA's STS-131 crew, which had successfully docked Space Shuttle Discovery with the International Space Station two days prior, would be conducting the first of three spacewalks on the two-week mission. That flight controllers down in Houston, Texas had pressed play on the Stephen Schwartz tune for those in orbit would not be surprising to fans of Wicked. Pun aside, what better way to capture a 'thrillifying' venture into the vacuum of space, sans spacecraft, than with a power ballad including lyrics 'everyone deserves the chance to fly' and 'they'll never bring us down'? Like a spacewalk is the apex of an astronaut's career, performing the role of Elphaba Thropp is a thespian's pinnacle. Securing the gig is not easy; expertly navigating the soaring belts and contrasting growls of what's commonly considered one of the most challenging songs to sing, while literally flying across the stage strapped to a hydraulic lift system, is only part of what's required to credibly portray the captivating, complicated and universally beloved character night after night. From the moment a casting director decides an actress has the chops to pull it off, her life has been irrevocably changed. A role of such magnitude is not something one simply walks away from. Unless you have no choice. Something bad was happening to Sheridan Adams. After 16 months touring as Elphaba across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane with rave reviews, Perth audiences finally got the chance to see Adams, and Courtney Monsma 's Galinda 'Glinda' Upland, up close in December. But Adams' first performance in the West Australian capital would ultimately be her last, despite the season booked until February plus a planned encore in Singapore. Loading It started, weeks earlier, in Brisbane; Adams would rush on-stage in green paint, knitted cap atop her head and suitcase in-hand, and proceed to perform a show where her voice was 'the best it had ever been'. But sometimes, the opposite would be true. 'I knew something was awry, but I had no idea that it was an injury,' Adams tells me in between sips from a water bottle seemingly bigger than her head. By the time the 27-year-old Melburnian whisked out of the wings at Crown Theatre Perth's opening night, it was with the definitive knowledge that something was terribly wrong. Nonetheless, the show would go on. Adams completed the almost three-hour-long performance. Then, she vanished. What was wrong with Adams is something that's 'not the end of the world', as she takes great pains to tell me, when it comes to the wider context of, well, current events. But for someone whose lifeline relies on the use of their instrument, an extensive vocal injury can feel world-ending. 'Because it had never happened to me before, and it's not spoken about, it was really hard. I went to a very dark place.' Sheridan Adams What happened to Sheridan Adams? 'It's quite traumatic. It's quite difficult because [your voice is] a part of you, it's often a part of your identity,' Adams says. 'When that's taken away, you really have to rediscover who you are and rediscover what your relationship is with your voice.' It's estimated that more than 25 per cent of Broadway performers have been diagnosed with a vocal injury during a show's run. It's rare, however, for a performer to take extended time off, and rarer for a vocal injury to be cited as the reason. Adams says Megan Hilty, who recently disclosed she would be taking a leave of absence from Broadway's Death Becomes Her due to vocal injury, inspired her to speak out. With the support of production company Crossroads Live Australia, Adams' team and her loved ones, Adams spent months away from the stage, recovering from what she describes as a muscle bleed in her larynx. Symptoms can include hoarseness, pain while swallowing, frequent coughing, voice breaks, and more. Loading 'It was really daunting and really scary ... I've never been in a show like this before. I'd never had a lead role like this,' says Adams, whose experience before her casting was mainly college productions, fringe shows and professional ensemble or cover roles. 'Because it had never happened to me before, and it's not spoken about, it was really hard. I went to a very dark place.' I'm not good enough, I'm letting people down, I'm not going to be able to do this ever again constantly rang in Adams' head. Fellow performers reassured Adams a return to work is possible, privately disclosing their own previous vocal injuries. Laser surgery, steroid injections, yoga and 'a lot of silence and not talking' were essential for Adams' rehabilitation. As was deleting social media. It's all about popular It's safe to say the role of Elphaba comes with baggage; Wicked has been a consistent box office smash since the stage show opened at Gershwin Theatre in 2003. But before Jon M. Chu's film, its fandom was mainly kept to those who had the means to get themselves to New York, London or a touring production, or crafty theatre nerds who knew the secret two-word code that unlocks a bounty of YouTube bootlegs. Once Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande 's casting was announced, that changed. Suddenly, the intense passion, and ownership, over the story, songs and characters were no longer limited to the fringe. From LEGO sets, hairbrushes and pyjamas in store windows to social media, Adams couldn't walk down the street or open her phone without seeing Wicked. Algorithms were suddenly flooded with footage and fan-art of Erivo and Grande – and, as anticipation amped during the film's globe-trotting press tour, of past and present cast from stage productions beyond Broadway and the West End, including Australia's Adams and Monsma. 'It was like my workplace was following me everywhere I went,' says Adams, who found it 'exciting' as someone who had realised she wanted to pursue acting through song mid- Over the Rainbow while auditioning for the role of Dorothy Gale in a high-school production of The Wizard of Oz. But it also meant that four weeks after Erivo and Grande walked the Yellow Brick Road in Sydney, anyone with an internet connection noticed when, 14 years after she last played the part, Wicked alumna Patrice Tipoki flew into Perth for an emergency cover of Elphaba. Comments from fans asking where Adams was, no matter how well meaning, were particularly hard for her to read. Loading 'I didn't talk to anyone about it,' Adams says. 'I really secluded and isolated myself from the world and from everyone.' Trusting her instincts, closing her eyes, and taking a leap In what made for an awkward conundrum in London on the night of Queen Elizabeth II's death, Wicked opens with the jubilant exclamation: 'Good news, she's dead!' This weekend, however, audiences in Seoul will instead see Monsma's Glinda and the cast of Wicked 'rejoicifying' the return of their Elphaba, with Adams taking the stage in the role for the first time in eight months. Similar to her first turn as the 'Wicked Witch of the West', Adams will be halfway through the show's South Korea tour when Wicked: For Good is released in cinemas this November. What's different is that now, in addition to her regular hydration and steaming routine, Adams is equipped with a series of semi-occluded vocal tract exercises, and a new perspective on vocal rest – helped, in part, by the fact she will perform six shows a week, with Zoe Coppinger performing the remaining two in South Korea. 'Coming back from this, it's probably been the hardest and most rewarding thing I've ever done in my entire life,' says Adams, fresh off her first week of rehearsals. 'If you're going through this, you're not alone ... it doesn't mean that you're not a good singer … or that there's something wrong with you. It happens, and you can come back, and you can step back into a role like Elphaba.'
ABC News
2 days ago
- ABC News
NASA publishes highly-detailed imagery from Parker Solar Probe's closest-ever approach to the Sun
The US space agency has revealed images taken from the closest-ever distance from the Sun, showing massive plumes of solar material spewing out into space. They were taken last December, when the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Parker Solar Probe made its closest approach to the Sun. The probe passed by within 6.2 million kilometres of the Sun — the first time it had got so close to the solar star. And while it has since made two more close approaches to the Sun, we're only now seeing the incredibly detailed imagery from that first trip now. "The amount of clarity and the amount of details that we got from Parker Solar Probe is totally unprecedented," Parker Solar Probe project scientist Nour Rawafi said. "But also we see phenomena that you didn't really see before and that's where the fun begins." What you're looking at is solar wind spewing out from the solar atmosphere — called the corona — and onwards into our solar system. The imagery shows a stream of electrically charged particles spewing out from the Sun in huge bursts. Scientists call these coronal mass ejections (CMEs). And the images from the Parker Probe show us those events in high definition for the first time. The imagery was captured with the Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe, which has been nicknamed WISPR. "We're seeing the CMEs basically piling up on top of one another," WISPR instrument scientist Angelos Vourlidas said in a NASA article. The yellow dotted lines in these images highlight three different CMEs. It also shows something called heliospheric current sheet. That's the boundary where the direction of the Sun's magnetic field switches from north to south. While the imagery is spectacular to look at, the whole mission isn't about capturing cool videos from space. The idea is that learning more about the Sun will help scientists better prepare us for the impacts of space events have on Earth. It's a term for things that happen outside the Earth's atmosphere which impact the near-Earth space environment and our technology here on Earth. And it's not just something NASA thinks about. Here in Australia, the Bureau of Meteorolgy has a special department dedicated to it, called the Australian Space Weather Forecasting Centre (ASWFC). "The primary source of space weather is the Sun, with the greatest disturbances usually caused by solar flares and subsequent geomagnetic storms," the ASWFC website says. Space weather events like CMEs can lead to what's called geomagnetic storms, the phenomena that causes the aurora australis (or the aurora borealis if you're in the Northern Hemisphere). The centre monitors and forecasts space weather conditions, which include solar activity, and geophysical and ionospheric conditions. One function of the ASWFC is putting out geomagnetic storm alerts, which aurora chasers use so they can set themselves up to take stunning photos like this one. if you're interested, you sign up to the ASWFC alerts via this online portal, you'll get an email next time an aurora might be brewing. But space weather is not just about pretty lights. Severe solar weather can create a whole lot of problems on Earth. "It offers serious threats to increasingly complex communications and technological systems," the ASWFC's website explains. "Space weather disturbances can interrupt HF radio, damage power grids, threaten satellite transmissions and instruments, including avionics in extreme circumstances, and reduce the life of satellites in low earth orbits." This can translate to things like navigational issues for pilots, hampering communications with emergency services and, in some cases, cause power outages. "Our ability to observe and monitor solar activity is crucial," the ASWFC says in a fact sheet. It points to a CME in July 2012 which impacted a NASA satellite, but thankfully missed Earth. "A 2013 study estimated that the USA would have suffered between $600 billion and $2.6 trillion in damages, mainly to electrical infrastructure, if this coronal mass ejection had been directed towards the Earth," the fact sheet said. "We are witnessing where space weather threats to Earth begin, with our eyes, not just with models," NASA's Nicky Fox said. "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."
