NASA prepares to send a probe into Sun's atmosphere

NASA is preparing to send a probe closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft.

The craft will have to withstand the nasty heat by zooming through the solar corona to study this outermost part of the stellar atmosphere that gives rise to the Parker Solar Probe, a robotic spacecraft the size of A small car, should be launched from Cape Canaveral Florida, August 6 being the launch date of the planned seven-year mission. 19659002] It is predicted to fly in the Sun's crown to 6.1 million km from the solar surface, seven times closer than any other spacecraft

"Send a probe where you do not have to. You have not been ambitious before. "At a press conference, Nicola Fox, a project scientist from Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Lab, said the previous pbadage closest to the Sun was a probe called Helios 2, which arrived in 1976. In comparison, the average distance of the Sun to the Earth is 150 million km

The crown gives birth to the solar wind, a continuous stream of charged particles that permeates the solar system Unpredictable solar winds cause disturbances in the magnetic field of our planet and can disrupt communications technology on Earth

NASA hopes that the discoveries will will enable scientists to predict changes in the Earth's space environment.

The spacecraft should use seven Venus overflights for nearly seven years to gradually reduce its orbit around the Sun, using instruments designed to image the solar wind. and study electric and magnetic fields, coronal plasma and energetic particles.

NASA aims to collect data on the inner workings of the highly magnetized crown

The probe, named after the American astrophysicist Eugene Newman Parker, will have to survive difficult heat and radiation conditions .

It was equipped with a heat shield designed to maintain its instruments at an acceptable temperature of 29 degrees Celsius even when the spacecraft faces s temperatures reaching nearly 1,370 degrees Celsius at its closest pbad.