A Spacecraft Is About to Fly Into the Sun’s Atmosphere for the First Time

Almost nary 1 ever writes astir the Parker Solar Probe anymore.

Sure, the spacecraft got immoderate attraction erstwhile it launched.  It is, aft all, the fastest-moving entity that humans person ever built. At its maximum speed, goosed by the gravitational propulsion of the sun, the probe reaches a velocity of 430,000 miles per hour, oregon much than one-sixth of 1 percent the velocity of light. That benignant of velocity would get you from New York City to Tokyo successful little than a minute.

And the Parker Solar Probe besides has the favoritism of being the archetypal NASA spacecraft named aft a surviving person. At the clip of its launch, successful August 2018, physicist Eugene Parker was 91 years old.

But successful the six years since the probe has been zipping done outer abstraction and flying by the sun? Not truthful much. Let's look it, the astrophysical properties of the prima and its analyzable operation are not thing that astir radical deliberation astir connected a regular basis.

However, the smallish probe—it masses little than a metric ton, and its technological payload is lone astir 110 pounds (50 kg)—is astir to marque its prima turn. Quite literally. On Christmas Eve, the Parker Solar Probe volition marque its closest attack yet to the sun. It volition travel wrong conscionable 3.8 cardinal miles (6.1 cardinal km) of the star surface, flying into the star ambiance for the archetypal time.

Yeah, it's going to get beauteous hot. Scientists estimation that the probe’s vigor shield volition endure temperatures successful excess of 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,371 C) connected Christmas Eve, which is beauteous overmuch the polar other of the North Pole.

Going Straight to the Source

I spoke with the main of subject astatine NASA, Nicky Fox, to recognize wherefore the probe is being tortured so. Before moving to NASA headquarters, Fox was the task idiosyncratic for the Parker Solar Probe, and she explained that scientists truly privation to recognize the origins of the star wind.

This is the watercourse of charged particles that emanate from the sun’s outermost layer, the corona. Scientists person been wondering astir this peculiar enigma for longer than fractional a century, Fox explained.

“Quite simply, we privation to find the birthplace of the star wind,” she said.

Way backmost successful the 1950s, earlier we had satellites oregon spacecraft to measurement the sun’s properties, Parker predicted the beingness of this star wind. The technological assemblage was beauteous skeptical astir this idea—many ridiculed Parker, successful fact—until the Mariner 2 ngo started measuring the star upwind successful 1962.

As the technological assemblage began to clasp Parker’s theory, they wanted to cognize much astir the star wind, which is specified a cardinal constituent of the full star system. Although the star upwind is invisible to the bare eye, erstwhile you spot an aurora connected Earth, that's the star upwind interacting with Earth’s magnetosphere successful a peculiarly convulsive way.