14 DAY TRIAL // This past June 25, NASA announced that, according to recent measurements and investigations, the Sun's atmosphere is considerably larger than previously assumed.
Specifically, the Administration argues that, as shown by data provided by its Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, the Sun's atmosphere, i.e. its corona, reaches a height of 5 million miles.
In case anyone was wondering, that's about 8,046,720 kilometers. As explained by astronomers, this distance is the equivalent of about 12 solar radii.
In a statement, specialist Craig DeForest explains that, in order to determine just how large the Sun's corona is, NASA researchers had to analyze sound-like waves whose behavior allowed them to map the atmosphere.
“We've tracked sound-like waves through the outer corona and used these to map the atmosphere,” said Craig DeForest of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
Furthermore, “We can't hear the sounds directly through the vacuum of space, but with careful analysis we can see them rippling through the corona.”
On its website, NASA details that this discovery that the Sun's atmosphere stands as much as 5 million miles tall will surely have implications for its upcoming Solar Probe Plus mission.
This mission is scheduled to launch in 2018 and boils down to trying to send a spacecraft closer to this star than any other man-made equipment has until now been.