Launched on 12 Aug. 2018, NASA's Parker Solar Probe is venturing closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft, mapping the last unvisited regions of the solar system. PSP completed six of its planned 24 elliptical orbits around the Sun. The first three orbits have the same perihelion (i.e., shortest distance to the Sun) of 25 million kilometers or 35.7 Rsun (Rsun = 1 solar radius = 695,000 km) from the center of the Sun, which occurred on 6 Nov. 2018, 4 Apr. 2019, and 1 Sep. 2019, respectively. Orbits 4 and 5 have the same perihelion of 27.8 Rsun. The perihelion for orbit 6 is 20 Rsun.

The spacecraft successfully incorporates technological breakthroughs to attain new science: PSP crossed a technological barrier by protecting sensitive spacecraft and payload components from intense solar photon radiation. Parker is primarily an exploration mission, and the data returned so far is a treasure trove that holds the potential for breakthrough discoveries. It is breaking new boundaries of space exploration by flying halfway between Mercury and the Sun. Parker is writing a new chapter of space research by revolutionizing our understanding of this mysterious region by answering long-standing questions that puzzled scientists for decades: how the solar wind plasma is heated and accelerated and solar energetic particles accelerated and transported throughout the heliosphere. The analyses of science data show new phenomena and plasma properties not seen before in the solar wind. Several major discoveries have been so far, most of which are mystifying (e.g., magnetic field switchbacks, solar wind tangential flows, solar energetic particles, and the dust-free zone). Some other discoveries concerning the heliospheric dust are also very insightful. I will provide an overview of the mission's scientific findings after two and a half years of operation and the outlook for the upcoming solar encounters.


About the Speaker:

Dr. Nour E. Raouafi is the Project Scientist of NASA Parker Solar Probe mission. He is a Ph.D. in Astrophysics (University of Paris XI, Orsay, France; Dec. 2000). Before joining the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in 2008, Dr. Raouafi worked at the Turin Observatory (Italy, 2001), the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (Göttingen, Germany 2002-2005) and the National Solar Observatory (Tucson, Arizona: 2005-2008). His research spreads over a wide range of solar and heliospheric areas with an emphasis on the dynamic solar corona via the analysis of spectral and imaging observations, theory, and modeling. He contributed to diverse research areas, e.g., solar magnetic fields, spectroscopy, polarimetry, coronal plumes and jets, CMEs and coronal shock waves, solar wind, solar energetic particles, and cometary physics. He authored and co-authored tens of peer-reviewed papers and meeting proceedings.