During its record-setting flyby in December 2024, the spacecraft got closer to the Sun than any human-made object ever has. From just under 4 million miles away, Parker’s Wide-Field Imager (WISPR) filmed extraordinary solar activity, offering unprecedented clarity into how magnetic structures behave inside the corona—the Sun’s outer atmosphere.
Launched by NASA to investigate the forces driving solar wind and eruptions, Parker Solar Probe has achieved more than twenty solar encounters. But its 22nd perihelion marked a turning point. For the first time, scientists were able to observe in sharp resolution the return of open magnetic flux to the Sun, revealing magnetic “inflow swarms,” tearing events in the heliospheric current sheet (HCS), and the explosive creation of magnetic structures known as in/out pairs. These discoveries, recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters by Angelos Vourlidas and his team at Johns Hopkins University, open a new chapter in heliophysics.
Inflow Swarms: Magnetic ‘Tadpoles’ Rushing Back to the Sun
Parker’s cameras recorded a series of plasma structures moving back toward the Sun in curved tracks, following the streamer boundaries of the solar corona. The spacecraft observed what researchers described as “tadpoles”, compact, dark shapes leading dense material, followed by trailing voids. They measured around 49 arcminutes (about 110 megameters) in width and appeared in high-cadence images between 2.35 and 3.5 solar radii.
According to the team’s paper, these formations are likely the sunward result of “pinch-off” magnetic reconnection, where magnetic field lines break and reform, dragging matter inward. The visual pattern, a compact head with a long tail, mirrored simulation results and past low-resolution observations from Earth, but had never been captured so close to the source.
Joe Westlake, NASA’s heliophysics division director, highlighted the importance of these observations: “These breathtaking images are some of the closest ever taken to the Sun,” he said in a NASA report. They show, in detail, how the Sun “continuously recycles its coronal magnetic fields and material,” added Nour Raouafi, project scientist for the mission.
Heliospheric Current Sheet Tear: A Magnetic Sheet Breaks Apart
Another dramatic moment during Parker’s pass was the rupture of the HCS, the giant magnetic plane that separates the Sun’s northern and southern magnetic fields. Captured between 11:30 and 21:00 UTC, a long, bright structure was seen stretching, shaking, and eventually tearing in what physicists call “tearing-mode instability.”
This instability, recorded from inside the solar atmosphere for the first time, mimicked the behavior of a flag whipping in the wind. According to the article in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the HCS segment split into two: one section flew outward, while the other retracted sunward, gradually turning into a train of wave-like ridges that morphed into collapsing “tadpoles.”
The WISPR camera tracked the evolution of one such structure over 105 minutes as it expanded at a rate of 5,000 kilometers per minute—growing in area by 185 times before vanishing. This chain of events, as explained by the researchers, was likely triggered by the impact of a nearby coronal mass ejection (CME), which compressed the HCS and led to the formation of multiple reconnection points.
In/Out Pairs: A Magnetic Loop Splits and Launches Plasma
Perhaps the most revealing moment came when Parker filmed the near-simultaneous birth of an in/out magnetic pair. At around 5.3 solar radii from the Sun’s surface, a magnetic structure was caught being pinched in the middle. One section flew outward into space at 560 km/s, far faster than predicted, while the other looped back inward.
These events were previously inferred from distant spacecraft like SOHO or STEREO, but never directly seen forming. Parker’s onboard WISPR instrument was able to capture both components emerging less than one solar radius apart. Researchers measured the inward part decelerating to about 100 km/s, matching historical models, while the outward-moving mass, described as a magnetic flux rope (MFR)-like structure, sped up rapidly and merged with other features in the corona.
According to NASA, this kind of magnetic recycling alters the structure of the solar atmosphere and may influence how future CMEs travel. Angelos Vourlidas emphasized this in the NASA report: “It turns out, some of the magnetic field released with the CME does not escape as we would expect, It actually lingers for a while and eventually returns to the Sun to be recycled, reshaping the solar atmosphere in subtle ways.” reshaping magnetic fields that could redirect later solar eruptions.
A Closer Sun, a Sharper Image
The findings from Parker Solar Probe’s 22nd perihelion demonstrate the power of close-up, high-cadence imaging. Many of the features observed, especially the smallest “tadpoles”, are impossible to detect from Earth’s orbit. As the spacecraft continues its mission, spiraling closer until it eventually dissolves in the Sun’s heat, it will keep delivering fresh insights about the mechanics of solar eruptions and the dynamic behavior of magnetic fields.
According to the authors, these observations are just the beginning. The probe’s continued flybys promise more data, and possibly more unexpected visuals from within the Sun’s outermost layers. The mission may not last forever, but its legacy will ripple through our understanding of space weather for years to come.