NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has revealed new details about a strange phenomenon during a solar storm. While making its closest ever pass in December 2024, Parker observed from a distance of 6.1 million km, that some of the material ejected from the Sun is falling back into it – something which scientists call an “inflow.”
This phenomenon, NASA says, is related to a coronal mass ejection or CME event which is triggered by twisted magnetic field lines explosively snapping and realigning in a process called magnetic reconnection. During this explosion, an immense cloud of charged particles and magnetic field are expelled from the Sun, and they create geomagnetic storms upon interaction with Earth.
Did you know the Sun can reuse its energy? ☀️ ♻️
Images captured as NASA’s Parker Solar Probe made its record-breaking closest approach to the Sun in December 2024 have now revealed new details about how the Sun can recycle some of its magnetic energy — potentially redirecting… pic.twitter.com/deDEsep3lx
— NASA Solar System (@NASASolarSystem) December 11, 2025
“We’ve previously seen hints that material can fall back into the Sun this way, but to see it with this clarity is amazing,” Nour Rawafi, the project scientist for Parker Solar Probe, said in a statement. “This is a really fascinating, eye-opening glimpse into how the Sun continuously recycles its coronal magnetic fields and material.”
Researchers have detailed the inflow process in a study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on December 11. The findings, they say, could provide invaluable insights into how the CME-driven release of magnetic fields affect not only the planets, but also the Sun.
NASA probe uncovers mysterious phenomenon
While the Parker probe didn’t discover the inflow, images collected by its Wide-Field Imager for Solar Probe (WISPR) have allowed scientists to make precise measurements about the inflow process, such as the speed and size of the blobs of material pulled back into the Sun.
An inflow is caused due to the reconnection process. When a CME occurs, it expands outward and causes nearby magnetic field lines to tear apart. The torn field lines quickly mend themselves and create separate loops. While some of them travel away from the Sun, others realign and reconnect, falling back into the Sun. Angelos Vourlidas, WISPR project scientist, said that the inflow recycles its magnetic field and reshapes the solar atmosphere in subtle ways.
“The magnetic reconfiguration caused by inflows may be enough to point a secondary CME a few degrees in a different direction,” Vourlidas said. “That’s enough to be the difference between a CME crashing into Mars versus sweeping by the planet with no or little effects.”
Every bit of data collected by Parker or other space-based observatories like SOHO (Solar and Heliospheric Observatory) and STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) will improve models of space weather and the Sun’s complex magnetic environment. They will ultimately help predict the impact of space weather across the solar system.
As the Sun moves toward solar minimum in its 11-year cycle, space weather scenes could get more dramatic, said Rawafi.
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