NASA is preparing to launch the world's first mission to touch the sun

NASA is about to launch the first mission of humanity to the Sun – a probe the size of a car that will fly less than 4 million miles from the solar surface.

The Parker Solar Probe, which is expected to take off on Aug. 6 aboard the United Delta IV Heavy Launch Alliance, will study the Sun closer than any man-made object. .

"We have been studying the sun for decades, and now we will finally go where the action is," said Alex Young, deputy director of science at the Heliophysical Science Division at the Goddard Space Flight Center of the NASA in the US

Our Sun is much more complex than it seems. Rather than the stable and immutable disc, it seems to human eyes, the Sun is a dynamic and magnetically active star.

The atmosphere of the Sun constantly sends magnetized material to the outside, enveloping our solar system far beyond the orbit of Pluto and influencing each world along the way.

Magnetic energy coils can burst with light and radiation from particles that travel in space and create temporary disturbances in our atmosphere, sometimes blurring radio and communication signals near the Earth.

The influence of solar activity on Earth and on other worlds is collectively known as space time, and the key to understanding its origins lies in the understanding of the Sun itself. -even.

"Even though the solar wind is invisible, we can see it encircle the poles like auroras, which are beautiful, but reveal the enormous amount of energy and particles that are pouring into the world. our atmosphere, "Nicky Fox, a Parker Solar Probe project scientist at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory.

"We do not fully understand the mechanisms that direct this wind towards us, and that's what we're going to discover," Fox said.

The Parker Solar Probe offers a range of instruments to study the Sun remotely and in situ, or directly. Together, the data from these instruments should help scientists answer three fundamental questions about our star.

A Sun-skimming mission like Parker Solar Probe has been a scientists dream for decades, but the technology needed – such as the heat shield, the solar panel cooling system, and the failure management system – do not have to be used. has been available only recently. mission a reality.

Parker Solar Probe will explore the crown, a region of the Sun seen only from the Earth when the Moon blocks the shining face of the Sun during total solar eclipses.

The crown contains the answers to many outstanding questions from scientists on the activity and processes of the Sun.