Closest Ever Images Near the Sun

Data: 2025-08-11

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Explanation

verybody sees the Sun. Nobody's been there. Starting in 2018, though, NASA launched the robotic Parker Solar Probe（帕克太阳探测器） (PSP) to investigate regions near to the Sun for the first time. The featured time-lapse video shows the view looking sideways from behind PSP's Sun shield in December during the closest approach of any human-made spacecraft to the Sun, looping down to only about five solar diameters above the Sun's hot surface. The PSP's Wide Field Imager for Solar Probe（太阳探测器广域成像仪） (WISPR) cameras took these images over seven hours, but they are digitally compressed here into about 5 seconds. The solar corona（太阳日冕）, including colliding coronal mass ejections（日冕物质抛射） (CMEs), is visible here in unprecedented detail, with stars passing far in the background. The Sun is not only Earth's dominant energy source, but its variable solar wind（太阳风） also compresses Earth's atmosphere, triggers auroras（极光）, affects power grids（电网）, and can even damage orbiting communication satellites（通信卫星）.