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NASA's Solar Probe has survived another extremely lightning approach to the sun.
The space agency has confirmed the success of its brief meeting Friday morning after passing 24 million km from the solar surface the night before.
This is the second time that the satellite is getting closer to the sun, which corresponds to the record recorded in November during its first approach.
NASA says that all systems seem in good shape and expect data from the meeting to begin arriving in the next few weeks.
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NASA's Solar Probe has survived another extremely lightning approach to the sun. The space agency has confirmed the success of its brief meeting Friday morning after passing 24 million km from the solar surface the night before.
The probe, which is about the size of a family hatchback, has moved closer to the sun than any other object made by man twice.
In close-up approaches, he faces extreme cosmic radiation – 500 times more intense than Earth – and temperatures of 1300 ° C (2400 ° F).
When it was less than 15 million kilometers from the sun, Parker was driving at 213,200 mph (343,000 km / h) – fast enough to fly between New York and London 39 times in an hour.
The Parker probe reached its closest point at 18:40. EDT on April 4th during his second closest approach, and will now send the data home.
"The spacecraft is working as expected, and it was great to be able to track it throughout the perihelion," said Nickalaus Pinkine, Parker Probe Solar Probe Operations Manager at APL.
"We look forward to gathering scientific data from this meeting in the coming weeks so that science teams can continue to explore the mysteries of the sun and the crown."
The probe entered the sun's orbit in November and has been moving ever since. His last visit in 2024 will be only 3.1 million km (6.1 million km) of its surface, when it will burn.
NASA designed the probe to protect its fragile internal instruments from harsh conditions and to capture most of the sun's heat.
The Parker probe, which is about the size of a family hatchback, is closer to the sun than any other man-made object. Twice, it has passed only 24 million km from its surface.
The US space agency hopes to maintain an internal temperature of 29 ° C and take essential measures of the crown to dispel the mystique surrounding our nearest star.
For example, scientists expect to receive vital data to help explain a long-standing mystery among physicists: why the crown is 300 times hotter than the sun's surface.
Our star still raises many unanswered questions, especially regarding its ability to produce such violent material plumes, called solar flares or coronal mass ejections.
These ions – charged particles – travel at extraordinary speeds, up to half the speed of light, before submerging all objects in the solar system and spraying them with potentially fatal radiation.
The Earth is protected by them by the thick atmosphere of our planet and by its powerful magnetic field and, for the most part, it is only manifested by auroras at the north and south poles.
More powerful events are likely to affect electronics on Earth, affecting GPS and other satellite-dependent services.
"Parker Solar Probe provides us with the essential measurements to understand the solar phenomena that have intrigued us for decades," said Nour Raouafi, chief scientist of the Parker Solar Probe project at Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory, in which Maryland.
The Parker Solar Probe will complete a total of 24 planned orbits over the next seven years, bringing it closer to the surface. The position of the probe, its speed and its round-trip light from 28 January 2019 are shown in the graph above.
"To close the link, local sampling of the solar corona and the young solar wind is needed, and Parker Solar Probe is doing just that."
This cosmic encounter between humanity and the stars will last until April 10 and NASA will lose contact with the spacecraft during this period.
It will complete its orbit and focus its resources on maintaining its heat shield in the direction of the ruthless onslaught of heat and charged sun particles.
A mission in the depths of the sun required materials capable of withstanding unparalleled conditions.
To respond to astrophysical challenges, NASA had to create new materials with remarkable thermal properties.
A 4.5 inch (11.5 cm) thick carbon composite shell was developed. It is attached to the probe and provides it with the essential of its protection.
NASA expects to start receiving a tiny amount of data from the pass over an extended period of several weeks later in the spring.
WHAT IS THE SOLAR PROBE PARKER OF NASA?
The Parker solar probe (PSP) is expected to travel seven times closer to the sun than any other spacecraft
NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP) is about to move seven times closer to the sun than any other spacecraft that precedes it.
It was launched on August 12, 2018 in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on top of a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket.
The probe will fly to the outside atmosphere of the sun to study the lives of stars and their weather events.
It is hoped that the PSP will help scientists better understand solar flares – brief eruptions of intense, high-energy radiation on the sun's surface that could block communications on the Earth.
The probe will dive within 4 million miles (6.5 million km) of the sun's surface, bringing it seven times closer to the sun's surface than any other spacecraft that precedes it.
The craft will be subjected to extreme heat and radiation and will reach speeds of up to 700,000 km / h (700,000 km / h) at its closest flyover to the star.
The kit includes a white light imager called Whisper, which will take pictures of solar waves while the craft propels them at high speed.
To measure the "bulk plasma" of the solar winds – described by NASA as the "daily bread" of the flares, a set of magnetic imaging equipment will also be stored on board.
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