{"id":217423,"date":"2025-07-09T02:21:38","date_gmt":"2025-07-09T07:21:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/parker-solar-probe-uncovers-direct-evidence-of-the-suns-helicity-barrier"},"modified":"2025-07-09T02:21:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T07:21:38","slug":"parker-solar-probe-uncovers-direct-evidence-of-the-suns-helicity-barrier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/07\/parker-solar-probe-uncovers-direct-evidence-of-the-suns-helicity-barrier","title":{"rendered":"Parker Solar Probe uncovers direct evidence of the sun\u2019s \u2018helicity barrier\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/parker-solar-probe-uncovers-direct-evidence-of-the-suns-helicity-barrier.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>New research utilizing data from NASA\u2019s Parker Solar Probe has provided the first direct evidence of a phenomenon known as the \u201chelicity barrier\u201d in the solar wind. This discovery, <a href=\"https:\/\/link.aps.org\/doi\/10.1103\/PhysRevX.15.031008\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in <i>Physical Review X<\/i> by Queen Mary University of London researchers, offers a significant step toward understanding two long-standing mysteries: how the sun\u2019s atmosphere is heated to millions of degrees and how the supersonic solar wind is generated.<\/p>\n<p>The solar atmosphere, or corona, is far hotter than the sun\u2019s surface, a paradox that has puzzled scientists for decades. Furthermore, the constant outflow of plasma and magnetic fields from the sun, known as the solar wind, is accelerated to incredible speeds.<\/p>\n<p>Turbulent <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/dissipation\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">dissipation <\/a>\u2014the process by which <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/mechanical+energy\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">mechanical energy<\/a> is converted into heat\u2014is believed to play a crucial role in both these phenomena. However, in the near-sun environment, where plasma is largely collisionless, the exact mechanisms of this dissipation have remained elusive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New research utilizing data from NASA\u2019s Parker Solar Probe has provided the first direct evidence of a phenomenon known as the \u201chelicity barrier\u201d in the solar wind. This discovery, published in Physical Review X by Queen Mary University of London researchers, offers a significant step toward understanding two long-standing mysteries: how the sun\u2019s atmosphere is [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-217423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}