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NASA is preparing to send a probe closer to the sun, enduring the nasty heat while zooming through the solar corona to study this outermost part of the stellar atmosphere that gives birth to the wind solar
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 expected to fly in the sun's crown within 3.8 million miles of the solar surface, seven times closer than any other spacecraft.
"Sending a probe where you've never been is ambitious – sending it in such brutal conditions is very ambitious," said Nicola Fox, a scientist from the project's Applied Physics Laboratory. Johns Hopkins University, at a press conference on Friday
. 2, which in 1976 was less than 43 million km
The distance of the earth from the sun is about 149.6 million km
Importance of the study
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 communication technology on the Earth. NASA hopes that the discoveries will enable scientists to predict changes in the Earth's space environment.
"It is fundamental 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 at NASA Maryland.
"In the most extreme cases of these space weather phenomena, this can affect our electrical networks on Earth". The project, with a cost of $ 1.5 billion, is the first major mission of NASA's Living With a Star program.
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'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 was equipped with a heat shield designed to maintain its instruments at an acceptable temperature of 29 degrees Celsius even as the spacecraft faces temperatures reaching nearly 21,370 degrees Celsius at its closest pass
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