NASA prepares to fly the probe in the burning atmosphere of Sun

CAPE CANAVERAL: NASA is preparing to send a probe closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft, enduring the nasty heat by zooming in on the solar corona to study this outermost part of the planet. 39 stellar atmosphere that gives birth to the solar wind.

The Parker Solar Probe, a robotic spacecraft the size of a small car, is expected to be launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, August 6 being the launch date of the planned seven-year mission. It is intended to fly in the Sun's corona within 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) of the solar surface, seven times closer than any other spacecraft.

"Sending a probe where you have not been before is ambitious, sending it in such brutal conditions is very ambitious," said Nicola Fox, a researcher at the Canadian Institute of Applied Physics Laboratory. Johns Hopkins University. Friday.

The previous one closest to the Sun was made by a probe called Helios 2, which in 1976 arrived at less than 27 million miles (43 million km). For comparison, the average distance between the Sun and 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. The unpredictable solar winds cause disturbances in the magnetic field of our planet and can wreak havoc with the Earth's communication technology. NASA hopes that the results will enable scientists to predict changes in the Earth's space environment.
"It is of fundamental importance for us to be able to predict this space time, just as we predict the weather here on Earth," said Alex Young, a solar scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center. NASA in Maryland. "In the most extreme cases of these space weather events, it can actually affect our power grids here on Earth."

The $ 1.5 billion project is the first major mission of NASA's Living With a Star program.

The spacecraft should use seven Venus flyovers 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's goal is 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 has been equipped with a heat shield designed to maintain its instruments at an acceptable temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius), even though the spacecraft faces temperatures reaching nearly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit as it pbades. the closest.