January 3, 2025
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Solar physics will shine in 2025
The science of the sun and its impact on the solar system is a vast discipline that promises a very exciting year in 2025.

The Sun sends out a constant stream of charged particles called the solar wind, which eventually travels past all the planets and about three times as far as Pluto before being blocked by the interstellar medium. This causes a giant bubble called the heliosphere to form around the sun and its planets.
Conceptual Imagery Lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
If our solar system lost a few moons or one planet, it might be hard to notice the difference, but when we lose our sun, everything changes. But despite its role as a cornerstone of the neighborhood, scientists still have many questions about how the sun works and how it affects our daily lives on Earth and in space. I am. And in 2025, it is poised to play a key role in providing answers.
Three factors combine to make next year particularly exciting for the field known as heliophysics: the sun’s natural cycle, spacecraft launches, and the release of a blueprint that will guide the next decade of research in the field. It’s going to be a great year.
The sun is currently at the peak of its 11-year cycle, and scientists expect it to continue for perhaps another year before it begins to decline. And while the current solar cycle 25 isn’t breaking records, it has produced numerous solar flares and other spectacular outbursts that scientists have been able to monitor using recent new instruments. These observers include both the largest solar telescope ever built and the closest spacecraft to the Sun in history.
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And this year, many new companies will be joining these groundbreaking projects. NASA alone is expected to launch six missions to study the sun and the myriad ways it forms the solar system. These include the Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP), designed to help scientists map the outer limits of the Sun’s sphere of influence. The Escape and Plasma Acceleration Dynamics Explorer (ESCAPADE) is a pair of spacecraft that will orbit Mars and study the planet’s space weather experience. The other is the Polarimeter for Corona and Heliosphere Integration (PUNCH) mission, which combines four small satellites orbiting the Earth to study the Sun’s outer atmosphere (corona).
In addition, U.S. solar physicists are working on a new so-called decennial report, a blueprint for the next 10 years outlining many national science priorities, released last month and a federal The agency plans to begin implementation next year. “We’re really excited,” said Joe Westlake, a solar physicist and director of NASA’s Solar Physics Division in the Science Mission Directorate.
“These ten years are an ambitious vision for our future,” he says. “There’s some really good stuff in this.”
For future spacecraft missions, the report recommends that NASA pursue two large-scale projects. A mission will consist of a total of 26 spacecraft, two of which will be placed in a circular orbit above the Earth’s poles to take images of the aurora borealis and the Earth’s magnetic field from a distance. The rest will be on an elliptical orbit through the Earth’s magnetic field, where it will collect local observations of the Earth’s magnetic strength and nearby plasma. “More than 20 spacecraft and the ability to have them all together at the same time looking down, looking up, and collecting observations is going to be a really great dataset tool for us,” he said. said Acting Director Nicky Reil. Split. “I think it will be groundbreaking.”
The second large-scale project is a spacecraft designed to swoop over the Sun’s poles several times throughout the 11-year solar cycle. NASA’s current mission, the Parker Solar Probe, is moving closer and closer to the Sun’s surface, but is stuck observing the Sun above the equator. Meanwhile, the European Space Agency’s ongoing mission called Solar Orbiter has only provided a partial view of the solar pole. As a result, our star’s poles remain a region full of mystery, despite playing an important role in the evolution of the Sun’s magnetic field. “It’s hard to get to the poles of the sun. It’s a difficult environment to get into,” says Reil. “It’s the next uncharted territory.”
On Earth, these ambitious missions will be powered by the Next Generation Global Oscillatory Network Group (ngGONG), which builds on the existing GONG group of observatories, which began operations in 1995. These observatories are distributed all over the world to constantly monitor the sun. Just as geologists use seismology to study the interior of the sun, they use a technique called helioseismology to study the interior of the sun by observing the waves that pass through it. I will. Earth.
“Some of the bold, incredible goals over the decades help us really dive into the unknown and make scientific discoveries,” says Reil. And in the meantime, she points out, missions launched next year will provide more insight into the Sun and raise new questions. “I’m just excited to be in data collection mode,” she says. “It’s about time.”