NASA’s Parker Solar Probe detected energetic particles from a powerful magnetic explosion as it ventured through the Sun’s corona, providing new information on magnetic reconnection, an important factor in local space weather.
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists conducted the work, illuminating how the phenomenon moves the solar wind by heating the Sun’s atmosphere. The work has major implications for understanding space weather threats to infrastructure, as well as the development of nuclear fusion.
The Parker Solar Probe
Since launching in 2018, the Parker Space Probe has made the closest approaches to the sun of any scientific instrument, enabling a valuable new stream of data about our host star. Up to three times a year, Parker flies so close to the Sun that it enters the Corona, crucial as the heating of the solar atmosphere and its impact on the solar wind are among scientists’ biggest questions at the moment. Beyond the fear of devastating electrical interference, glimpses into the solar atmosphere may provide vital clues as physicists pursue nuclear fusion on Earth.
Parker is part of a broader NASA program, Living With a Star. Run out of Goddard Space Flight Center, the program aims to develop a more comprehensive understanding of how our star affects life on Earth. From the design phase to present operation, Parker has been a Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory project.
Magnetic Reconnection
Magnetic fields form in concentric circles around an object, known as magnetic field lines. When these lines meet, split, and reconnect, it is called “magnetic connection,” generating explosions that produce high-speed flows and energize particles. These magnetic explosions can produce events such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections, major drivers of space weather, which can lead to both beautiful auroras and significant electrical interference. Such electrical interference can harm terrestrial power grids and satellites in between.
“Reports from the American Meteorological Society indicated that the powerful solar events in May 2024 wreaked havoc with farmers when extreme geomagnetic storms disrupted the precise GPS-guided navigation systems used to plant, fertilize and harvest rows of seeds, causing an estimated loss of up to $500 million in earning potential,” said lead author Dr. Mihir Desai, of SwRI. “Parker’s access to this new data is critical, particularly as we remain in the midst of a very active solar cycle.”
New Findings on Space Weather
“Through the SwRI-led Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, scientists made the first direct detection of the source of magnetic reconnection near Earth, observing how this explosive physical process converts stored magnetic energy into kinetic energy and heat,” Desai said. “Now Parker has made direct observations of how magnetic reconnection at the heliospheric current sheet (HCS), where the interplanetary field reverses its polarity, energizes charged particles to extremely high energies.”
Instead of activity on the Sun producing the energetic particles, the team discovered that a reconnection jet and highly energetic protons were directed towards the Sun from space, viewed by the Parker Solar Probe as it crossed the HCS. The probe detected protons energized to such an extent that they eclipsed the available magnetic energy per particle by a factor of one thousand.
“These findings indicate that magnetic reconnection in the HCS is an important source of energetic particles in the near-Sun solar wind,” Desai said. “Everywhere there are magnetic fields there will be magnetic reconnection. But the Sun’s magnetic fields are much stronger near the star, so there’s a lot more stored energy to be released.”
The paper “Magnetic Reconnection-driven Energization of Protons up to ~400 keV at the Near-Sun Heliospheric Current Sheet” appeared on May 29, 2025, in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on Twitter @mdntwvlf.
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