NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has flown closer to the Sun than ever before, offering the first direct glimpse into the turbulent solar atmosphere. Scientists have discovered that a phenomenon called the “helicity barrier” disrupts the way energy is transformed into heat, solving a major puzzle in how the Sun’s corona gets so hot and the solar wind accelerates. This breakthrough helps explain why solar wind protons are hotter than electrons and may also reveal how energy dissipates in other distant cosmic plasmas.
