Large Solar Winds

Sun and Solar Wind

Following the Sun’s Reach

At the heart of our solar system, our Sun generates magnetic fields carried past the planets and beyond by the solar wind—the stream of charged gas blasting from the Sun in all directions.

The Sun is our host star, a ball of super-heated charged gas, laced with magnetic field lines. Charged particles, accelerated in the Sun’s atmosphere, can sometimes carry these lines outward, traveling as a gale-force wind through space at 1 million mph until they reach the edge of the solar system. APL has provided the tools and means to study the Sun and this solar wind along every step of the way. Through multiple missions—including NASA’s closest ever to the Sun—and instruments on numerous spacecraft, APL is helping to revolutionize our understanding of our home star and its effects on the solar system and beyond.

Related Areas of Impact

Mission Area

Missions

APL has designed, built, and operated more than 70 innovative spacecraft over its six decades of spaceflight experience. Click below to learn about some of the missions that made revolutionary discoveries, and spacecraft that will push the boundaries of exploration and investigate outstanding scientific mysteries.

Artist's rendering of Parker Solar Probe

Parker Solar Probe Sun and Solar Wind

Parker Solar Probe dives closer to the Sun than humanity has ever ventured to unlock the mysteries of our nearest star.
Learn more about Parker Solar Probe
STEREO Spacecrafts and the Sun

STEREO Sun and Solar Wind

The Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) mission has provided 3D views of the solar corona, coronal mass ejections and the solar wind, and advanced space weather forecasting.
Learn more about STEREO
Artist's rendering of New Horizons

New Horizons Pluto, Kuiper Belt Objects, and Comets

New Horizons is the first mission to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, the distant region of planetary building blocks that hold keys to our solar system’s formation.
Learn more about New Horizons
IMAP Spacecraft rendering

IMAP Interstellar Medium

NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) mission, which APL built in partnership with Principal Investigator David McComas of Princeton University, will study the boundary of our heliosphere, decoding the messages in particles from the Sun and beyond our cosmic shield.
Learn more about IMAP
ACE Satellite orbiting the sun

ACE Sun and Solar Wind

A heliophysics observatory, the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) provides early warning of geomagnetic storms that can overload power grids, disrupt communications on Earth, and present a hazard to astronauts.
Learn more about ACE

Instruments

Scientists and engineers at APL have designed, built, and operated more than 300 novel space instruments and methods to conduct cutting-edge research and make groundbreaking discoveries. Click below to learn about some of these instruments and their role in shaping our understanding of space and the solar system.

ULEIS Spacecraft near the sun

ULEIS Sun and Solar Wind

The Ultra Low Energy Isotope Spectrometer (ULEIS) determines the range and abundances of isotopes during massive solar events.
Learn more about ULEIS
Rendering of the IMAP spacecraft

IMAP-Ultra Interstellar Medium

Advancing designs built to study energetic particles around Earth and Saturn, IMAP-Ultra will image energetic particles from the edge of the solar system, providing detailed visuals of what happens when the Sun’s solar wind meets interstellar space. IMAP-Ultra is one of 10 instruments that will be included on the spacecraft.
Learn more about IMAP-Ultra
Suprathermal Ion Spectrograph

SIS Sun and Solar Wind

The Suprathermal Ion Spectrograph (SIS) determines elements by measuring how long it takes a particle to move through the instrument.
Learn more about SIS
Rendering of Pluto

PEPSSI Pluto, Kuiper Belt Objects, and Comets

The Pluto Energetic Particle Spectrometer Science Investigation (PEPSSI) is the most compact, lowest-power directional energetic-particle spectrometer flown in space.
Learn more about PEPSSI
Voyager spacecraft

LECP Sun and Solar Wind

The Low-Energy Charged Particle (LECP) detectors have measured ions and electrons in the outer solar system and beyond.
Learn more about LECP
Energetic Particle Instrument-Low Energy in a lab

EPI-Lo Sun and Solar Wind

The Energetic Particle Instrument-Low energy (EPI-Lo) is investigating the Sun’s energetic particles from an unprecedented distance.
Learn more about EPI-Lo
Electron, Proton and Alpha Monitor

EPAM Sun and Solar Wind

The Electron, Proton, and Alpha Monitor (EPAM) is designed to detect energetic particles from the Sun, the galaxy, and interstellar space.
Learn more about EPAM
Illustration of SSUSI

SSUSI Earth

The Special Sensor Ultraviolet Spectrograph Imagers (SSUSI) instruments remotely sense Earth’s upper atmospheric response to the changing conditions of the Sun’s activity cycle, particularly in equatorial and polar regions.
Learn more about SSUSI

Related News

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) and two other spacecraft launches from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

NASA Launches IMAP Mission to Study the Heliosphere and Better Understand Space Weather Sep 24, 2025

NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida at 7:30 a.m. EDT.
Listen
The Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) is shown after installation in the X-Ray and Cryogenic Facility chamber at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Princeton/Ed Whitman)

NASA’s IMAP Mission Passes Major Prelaunch Milestone Sep 19, 2025

NASA’s Interstellar Mapping and Acceleration Probe (IMAP) completed its Flight Readiness Review on Sept. 18, which certifies its readiness to initiate final launch preparation activities.
Listen
Image taken by Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Snaps Closest-Ever Images to Sun Jul 16, 2025

On its record-breaking pass by the Sun late last year, the Johns Hopkins APL-built Parker Solar Probe captured stunning images from within the Sun’s atmosphere. Taken closer to the Sun than we’ve ever been before, the images are helping scientists better understand the Sun’s influence across the solar system, including events that can affect Earth.
Listen
A photo taken from the International Space Station of the aurora borealis streaming above southeastern Manitoba on Feb. 28, 2023. (Credit: NASA/Josh Cassada)

Johns Hopkins APL Publishes Report on Nation’s First Space Weather Simulation Exercise May 2, 2025

APL recently released the report on the nation’s first space weather tabletop exercise held last year, which simulated a severe space weather event. The report identifies key findings and recommendations for improving the nation’s response to space weather events.
Listen
Members of the Parker Solar Probe mission team from NASA, Johns Hopkins APL and partner institutions surround the Robert J. Collier Trophy

Parker Solar Probe Team Wins 2024 Collier Trophy Mar 25, 2025

The innovative team of engineers and scientists from NASA, Johns Hopkins APL and more than 40 other partner organizations across the country that created the revolutionary Parker Solar Probe has been awarded the 2024 Robert J. Collier Trophy by the National Aeronautic Association.
Read More
Artist’s impression of NASA’s Parker Solar Probe on its record-setting closest approach to the Sun.

Parker Solar Probe Makes History With Closest Pass to the Sun Dec 27, 2024

NASA’s mission to “touch” the Sun has confirmed that it survived its record-breaking closest approach to the Sun’s surface on Dec. 24. Breaking its previous record by flying just 3.8 million miles (around 6.1 million kilometers) above the surface of the Sun, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe hurtled through the solar atmosphere at a blazing 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 kilometers per hour) — faster than any human-made object has ever moved.
Listen