Parker Solar Probe makes a milky way shot towards the sun

The Milky Way can be seen to the left of the image above, taken while the spacecraft was looking at the galactic center. The picture was taken with a low exposure time because the camera of the probe was facing the Sun.

"There is a very distinctive group of stars on the overlap of the two images. The brightest is the star Antares-alpha, which is in the constellation Scorpius and is about 90 degrees from the Sun. Russ Howard, head of the WISPR instrument for the probe (wide-field solar probe imager), said in a statement.

Parker Solar Probe has been sent into space to collect data enabling scientists to better predict space weather events. To do this, the probe was designed to fly in the outer atmosphere of the Sun, at a distance never before reached, 3.8 million kilometers from the surface of the star.

In all, it will take seven years to probe Parker to carry out its mission. Meanwhile, it will do several orbits around the sun.

According to NASA, the first of these approaches will take place in November. The sensor is already recording data on what the solar wind is doing near our planet. As it gets closer to the sun, the orientation of the probe changes, its cameras and sensors capture more and more structures coming out of the crown.

The Parker solar probe was created by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which will also operate the spacecraft during its planned mission. It is part of NASA's Living with a Star (or LWS) program, which explores aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society.

You will find more details about the Parker Solar Probe probe instruments and what they are supposed to do in the attached document.