                        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.

                              2024 February 19

                Looking Sideways from the Parker Solar Probe
     Video Credit: NASA, JHUAPL, Naval Research Lab, Parker Solar Probe;
             Processing: Avi Solomon; h/t: Richard Petarius III;
      Music: Beethoven's Symphony No. 7, Second Movement; Music Credit:
                              Wikimedia Commons

   Explanation: What's happening near the Sun? To help find out, NASA
   launched the robotic Parker Solar Probe (PSP) to investigate regions
   closer to the Sun than ever before. The PSP's looping orbit brings it
   nearer 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 16th approach to the Sun last year -- from well
   within the orbit of Mercury. The PSP's Wide Field Imager for Solar
   Probe (WISPR) cameras took the images over eleven days, but they are
   digitally compressed here into about one minute video. The waving of
   the solar corona is visible, as is a coronal mass ejection, 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.

                     Tomorrow's picture: galactic pearls
     __________________________________________________________________

       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply.
                NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices
                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,
                           NASA Science Activation
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

