NASA's Parker solar probe is ready for a second approach to the sun

In its second "sun-kissing" trip, NASA's solar probe, which is about the size of a small car, launched nearly eight months ago from Cape Canaveral Air Base, will be face once again to the perilous dangers of our star his second closest approach on April 4th.

Named after the American astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who developed the theory of solar winds – the steady stream of charged particles emitted by the sun that spread throughout the solar system – the Parker Solar Probe is the mission ambitious NASA to understand the sun.

Launched in August 2018 from Launch Complex 37, the $ 1.5-billion probe exploded at the top of a 233-foot Delta IV Heavy rocket from United Launch Alliance and reached its closest first approach. a few months later, in November.

First visit of humanity, not only to the sun, but to all the stars, this historical mission aims to unravel the mysteries of the giant gas ball that currently houses a place in the center of our solar system.

"This will help us predict the solar flares," said Jim Bridenstine, NASA's administrator, last week at a congressional subcommittee in Washington, DC. "This will help us predict potentially dangerous mass coronal mass ejections for astronauts in the deep space as we return to the moon and finally go to Mars, so we need to be able to predict these. to protect human life in the future. "

With a speed of approximately 213,200 mph, the zooming spacecraft will reach a perihelion (when it is closest to the sun) at about 15 million kilometers from the sun's surface at 18:40. NASA spokesman Geoff Brown told FLORIDA TODAY on Thursday, at the same distance on his first approach.

The spacecraft broke the sun's closest approach record set by the 1976 Helios 2 satellite, located less than 27 million kilometers from the sun's surface, during its first flight in November.

Expected to be a seven-year mission, the last three of the 24 orbits planned around the sun will see the probe fly at a speed of about 430,000 km / h. For comparison, it would only take a second to go from Philadelphia to Washington D.C. at this speed, according to NASA.

It will also face a dominant temperature of 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit when it will be within 3.8 million kilometers of the sun's surface during these last three orbits. It's about a tenth of mercury, 36 million kilometers from the sun on average.

After his last trip around the sun, in which case the probe will be in a stable orbit, the probe will begin to disintegrate once its heat shield can no longer provide protection, said Brown.

During perihelion, which will last until April 10, the four spaceship scientific instrument suites will be fully operational, storing the scientific data collected in the solar corona – the outermost part of the space. atmosphere.

According to the agency, the four instruments are designed to study magnetic fields, plasma and energy particles of the sun, as well as for solar wind imaging.

In order to withstand the extremely hot temperature of the sun on the spacecraft, the probe is protected by a composite carbon foam thermal protection system of 4.5 inches thick, keeping the satellite body in a comfortable state at only 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

Once the closest approach is reached, the probe remains silent for several days in order to focus on non-fusion, but begins transmitting the data to the Earth over a period of weeks later in the spring.

In December, the spacecraft will conduct its second of seven Venus gravity aids, needed to bring the spacecraft's orbit out of the sun.

Hopefully this mission will provide scientists with the information needed to determine how energy and heat move in the solar corona and to understand the causes of solar wind and solar energy particle acceleration, according to The NASA.

Since the completion of its first orbit in January, scientists have already downloaded more than 17 gigabits of scientific data and the complete dataset will be fully uploaded by April.

The study of the sun will also help scientists to better know other stars in the universe, to understand the development of life on Earth, as well as to the weather, an event that occurs when disturbances Solar wind shocks the Earth's magnetic field and pump energy into radiation belts, according to NASA.

Learning more about the topic and, more importantly, how to predict it, will help scientists understand how to protect many of the satellites on which humans depend and who are threatened by space weather.

"The solar wind also fills much of the solar system, dominating the space environment far from the Earth," according to NASA. "As we send more and more space ships and astronauts, we must understand this space environment, just as the first sailors needed to understand the ocean."

Contact Jaramillo at 321-242-3668 or [email protected]. To follow her Twitter @ AntoniaJ_11.

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