Overview
- NASA confirmed that images from Parker Solar Probe’s Dec. 24, 2024 perihelion captured ‘inflows’—blobs of plasma and magnetic field returning to the Sun after a coronal mass ejection.
- The WISPR instrument provided the first precise inflow measurements, including blob sizes and speeds, enabling quantitative study of small-scale magnetic reconnection.
- Scientists report that magnetic loops formed during reconnection can contract back toward the Sun, pulling material with them and reshaping the local magnetic environment.
- This magnetic reconfiguration may nudge subsequent CMEs by a few degrees, a shift that can alter whether planets or spacecraft lie in an eruption’s path, and the findings are being folded into space‑weather models and mission planning.
- On Dec. 13, 2025 the spacecraft reached perihelion again at about 3.8 million miles and roughly 430,000 mph, collecting new data on solar wind, flares, and CMEs after the publication of the results in Astrophysical Journal Letters.