Here is the sun! Parker Solar Probe Instruments See "First Light"

As Parker Solar Probe prepares for an unprecedented big shot of the sun, the new spacecraft sent data home to show that everything is fine in the mission. The instruments of the probe showed the band of the Milky Way and detected the solar wind, the constant flow of particles emanating from the sun.

In November 2018, the spacecraft will be near the sun and, for seven years and many orbits, will make periodic close-ups of the sun and will zoom several times on Venus. Parker will arrive at 6.4 million kilometers from the sun in its closest orbit; it's more than eight times closer to the planet than Mercury reaches to the sun.

A great mystery that Parker could help to understand, so to speak, is why the solar corona (or upper atmosphere) is much hotter than the lower layers. The temperature of the corona ranges from 1.7 million degrees Fahrenheit (1 million degrees Celsius) to more than 17 million degrees F (10 million degrees C), according to the National Solar Observatory. In contrast, the photosphere or "surface" of the sun reaches about 10,500 degrees F (5,500 degrees C). [In Photos: NASA’s Parker Solar Probe in the Clean Room]

But to study this phenomenon, the four suites of Parker instruments must work properly. Fortunately for the mission investigators, the first data sent in the month following the launch show that everything is working properly.

Nour Raouafi, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Maryland, said in a statement from NASA.

Here is what each of the instruments returned:

• WISPR (wide field imager for solar probe): A new image of the two WISPR telescopes captured a dark part of the Milky Way galaxy as well as the star Antares, which is in the Scorpius constellation. Eventually, WISPR will return images of the crown and other parts of the sun's atmosphere.

• EASTʘIS (Integrated Scientific Investigation of the Sun): There are two instruments that measure the high energy particles associated with the activity of the sun, such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections of charged particles. Both instruments captured cosmic rays (at the upper end of the energy spectrum) from outside the Milky Way, as well as hydrogen and helium particles (located at the lower end of the energy spectrum). When the instruments are closer to the sun, they will look for evidence of solar energy particles.

• FIELDS (EMF Survey): This instrument will measure magnetic and electrical fields in the sun's atmosphere to help scientists better understand why the corona is much hotter than the photosphere. The first data returned by FIELDS was collected when the instrument antennas, attached to a boom, were deployed shortly after the launch of the spacecraft. Investigators have glimpsed the magnetic field of the spacecraft during deployment; the force of the field decreased as the arrow moved away from the spacecraft.

• SWEAP (Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons): This suite includes three instruments: a cup that measures the solar wind and two solar probe analyzers that examine the charged particles in this wind. Investigators saw a gust of solar wind blowing into the cup shortly after turning the instrument on, even though it was not expected that the spacecraft's orientation would produce measurements. Later, the analyzers examined the solar wind for short periods.

You can download all data from these instruments on this NASA website.

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