NASA’s Spacecraft Sent to Touch the Sun, Snaps First Image from Inside Sun’s Atmosphere

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is on a mission like no other spacecraft has ever attempted before.
Its currently speeding towards to sun in order to land the hottest ever high-five, effectively becoming the first spacecraft ever to attempt and ‘touch’ the sun.
On its way towards the Sun, the spacecraft has been gathering scientific data, and snapping images.



This image was captured by Parker's WISPR (Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe). Image Credit: NASA/Naval Research Laboratory/Parker Solar Probe.
This image was taken on Nov. 8, 2018, at 1:12 a.m. EST, and comes from the Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR (Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe) instrument. Image Credit: NASA/Naval Research Laboratory/Parker Solar Probe.

In October and November, the Parker Solar Probe crossed the Corona, the super-hot atmosphere that surrounds the sun. And while it was making history, it decided it would be a good idea to photograph what it was seeing.
The result? A stunning, never-before-seen image ‘inside’ the sun.
The photographed was captured by the probe’s WISPR (Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe) instrument, when the spacecraft was traveling at a distance of 16.9 million miles from the sun, inside our stars corona.
The image shows distinct jets of solar material which are dubbed coronal streamers, seen to the left/center of the image.
The bright spot you see in the above image is Mercury.
NASA explains that the black spots near planet Mercury are ‘artifacts’ of background correction.



This GIF image shows data from NASA's Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory Ahead (STEREO-A) spacecraft. The bright point is actually NASA's Parker Solar Probe as it flew through the sun's outer atmosphere during its first flyby in November 2018.
 Image Credit: NASA/STEREO
This GIF image shows data from NASA’s Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory Ahead (STEREO-A) spacecraft. The bright point is actually NASA’s Parker Solar Probe as it flew through the sun’s outer atmosphere during its first flyby in November 2018.
 Image Credit: NASA/STEREO

The probe is a mere four months old, and while its still a baby ‘spacecraft’, it has already had a busy mission life.
Before it made its way towards the sun, on September 19, the probe snapped the first images from space, confirming that all its instruments were working flawlessly.
In October, the spacecraft already began breaking records.
It smashed two long-standing records becoming the closets man-made object to ever approach the sun and becoming the fastest spacecraft in history.
Parker Solar Probe is named after Eugene Parker, the physicist who first proposed the existence of the solar wind — the Sun’s constant outpouring of material — in 1958.
“This is the first NASA mission to be named for a living individual,” said Nicola Fox, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
“Gene Parker’s revolutionary paper predicted the heating and expansion of the corona and solar wind. Now, with Parker Solar Probe we are able to truly understand what drives that constant flow out to the edge of the heliosphere.”

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