Parker Solar Probe: Four Years of Discoveries at Solar Cycle Minimum

Abstract

Launched on 12 Aug. 2018, NASA's Parker Solar Probe had completed 13 of its scheduled 24 orbits around the Sun by Nov. 2022. The mission's primary science goal is to determine the structure and dynamics of the Sun's coronal magnetic field, understand how the solar corona and wind are heated and accelerated, and determine what processes accelerate energetic particles. Parker Solar Probe returned a treasure trove of science data that far exceeded quality, significance, and quantity expectations, leading to a significant number of discoveries reported in nearly 700 peer-reviewed publications. The first four years of the 7-year primary mission duration have been mostly during solar minimum conditions with few major solar events. Starting with orbit 8 (i.e., 28 Apr. 2021), Parker flew through the magnetically dominated corona, i.e., sub-Alfvénic solar wind, which is one of the mission's primary objectives. In this paper, we present an overview of the scientific advances made mainly during the first four years of the Parker Solar Probe mission, which go well beyond the three science objectives that are: (1) Trace the flow of energy that heats and accelerates the solar corona and solar wind; (2) Determine the structure and dynamics of the plasma and magnetic fields at the sources of the solar wind; and (3) Explore mechanisms that accelerate and transport energetic particles.

arXiv comment157 pages, 65 figures

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Cited by in corpus (33)

• New Observations of Solar Wind 1/f Turbulence Spectrum from Parker Solar Probe
• Quantifying the Energy Budget in the Solar Wind from 13.3-100 Solar Radii
• New Evidence on the Origin of Solar Wind Microstreams/Switchbacks
• Observational Evidence of S-Web Source of the Slow Solar Wind
• Parker Solar Probe Observations of High Plasma Beta Solar Wind from Streamer Belt
• Internal magnetic field structures observed by PSP/WISPR in a filament related coronal mass ejection
• Evidence for the helicity barrier from measurements of the turbulence transition range in the solar wind
• Solar Spicules, Filigrees and Solar Wind Switchbacks
• Propagation of untwisting solar jets from the low-beta corona into the super-Alfvénic wind: Testing a solar origin scenario for switchbacks
• Analytic Model and Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of Three-dimensional Magnetic Switchbacks
• The Temperature, Electron, and Pressure Characteristics of Switchbacks: Parker Solar Probe Observations
• Quantifying the diffusion of suprathermal electrons by whistler waves between 0.2 and 1 AU with Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe
• Synthetic Remote-sensing and In-situ Observations of Fine-scale Structure in a Pseudostreamer Coronal Mass Ejection through the Solar Corona
• Dominance of 2-Minute Oscillations near the Alfvén Surface
• Effect of Spherical Polarization on the Magnetic Spectrum of the Solar Wind
• Whistler waves in the young solar wind: statistics of amplitude and propagation direction from Parker Solar Probe Encounters 1-11
• Modeling hot, anisotropic ion beams in the solar wind motivated by the Parker Solar Probe observations near perihelia
• Observed Fluctuation Enhancement and Departure from WKB Theory in Sub-Alfvénic Solar Wind
• Reconstruction of Polarization Properties of Whistler Waves From Two Magnetic and Two Electric Field Components: Application to Parker Solar Probe Measurements
• Solar Wind Structures from the Gaussianity of Magnetic Magnitude
• Spectroscopic Imaging of the Sun with MeerKAT: Opening a New Frontier in Solar Physics
• Switchbacks near Boundaries of Small-scale Magnetic Flux Ropes in the Young Solar Wind from Parker Solar Probe Observations
• Formation of Magnetic Switchbacks via expanding Alfvén Waves
• Two Types of $1/f$ Range in Solar Wind Turbulence
• Solar Alfvenic Pulses and Mesoscale Solar Wind
• A WISPR of the Venus Surface: Analysis of the Venus Nightside Thermal Emission at Optical Wavelengths
• Solar flare forecasting with foundational transformer models across image, video, and time-series modalities
• Precision Rydberg State Spectroscopy with Slow Electrons and Proton Radius Puzzle
• Compressive Structures in the Foreshock of Collisionless Shocks
• Ion-Scale Solitary Structures in the Solar Wind Observed by Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe
• The influence of Parker spiral on the reflection-driven turbulence
• Solitary Alfvén Waves
• Transformation of solar wind energy and helicity spectra in the frame of magnetohydrodynamics shell modeling