NASA's mission to hit the sun is coming soon

Wearing a nearly 5-inch layer of carbon composite solar shields, NASA's Parker Solar Probe will explore the sun's atmosphere in a mission that is expected to be launched in early August. This is NASA's first mission to the sun and its outermost atmosphere, called the crown.

NASA is expected to release new details on the spacecraft and its launch next Friday afternoon.

This is not a human trip. NASA is therefore sending a probe about 10 feet high on the historic mission that will place it closer to the sun than any spacecraft has ever reached before.

The probe will have to withstand the heat and radiation ever experienced by a spacecraft, but the specially designed mission will also answer questions that have not been answered before. Understanding the sun in more detail can also illuminate the Earth and its place in the solar system, according to the researchers.

In 2017, the ship – initially called Solar Probe Plus – was renamed Parker Solar Probe in honor of the astrophysicist Eugene. Parker.

"This is the first time that NASA names a spaceship for a living individual," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate director of the agency's scientific missions branch in Washington. "This testifies to the importance of his work, by founding a new scientific field that has also inspired my own research and many important scientific issues that NASA continues to study and understand better every day. I am very excited to be personally involved in honoring a great man and his unprecedented legacy. "

Parker published research predicting the existence of the solar wind in 1958, when he was a young professor at the Enrico Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago." At the time, the astronomers believed that the space between the planets was a void: Parker's first article was rejected, but it was saved by a colleague, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, an astrophysicist who would receive the Nobel Prize in physics in 1983.

Less than two years after the publication of Parker's article, his theory of the solar wind was confirmed by satellite observations.His work has revolutionized our understanding of the sun and interplanetary space.

Parker is now eminent Professor S. Chandrasekhar emeritus professor at the University of Chicago Zurbuchen and Parker Solar Probe missionary project scientist Nicola Fox also presented to Parker the first model of the NASA and the prestigious NASA Public Service Medal

"I am very honored to be associated with such a heroic scientific space" Parker says, "Parker's Solar Probe will carry a chip with pictures of Parker and from his groundbreaking paper, as well as a plaque bearing the inscription that Parker wants to provide: his message to the sun

will eventually be in orbit within 3.7 million miles of the sun's surface. The observations and data could provide insight into the physics of stars, change what we know about the mysterious crown, increase understanding of the solar wind and help improve the prediction of major space weather events. These events can affect satellites and astronauts as well as the Earth – including the power grid and radiation exposure on air flights, says NASA

The mission's goals are to track the flow of 39, solar energy. , determining the structure and dynamics of plasma and magnetic fields at solar wind sources and exploring mechanisms that accelerate and transport energetic particles. "

" We have been in the orbit of Mercury and have done amazing things, but until you go to the sun, you can not answer those questions, "Fox said. Why did it take us 60 years? Materials did not exist to allow us to do this. We had to make a heat shield, and we like it. Something that can withstand the extreme temperature changes of its 24 orbits is revolutionary. "

The solar wind is the flow of sun-laden gas that is present in most of the solar system.This wind shouts beyond the Earth at a million miles per hour, and the disturbances of the solar wind cause space disturbances that affect our planet.

The space weather may not look like the Earth. estimated that a solar event without warning could cause $ 2 trillion in damage to the United States. United and leave parts of the country without electricity for a year.

In order to reach orbit around the sun, Parker's solar probe will take seven overflights of Venus which will essentially give the probe a gravitational assist, narrowing its orbiting the sun for nearly seven years.

The probe will eventually be closer to the sun than Mercury, and will be close enough to watch the solar wind shift from subsonic to supersonic.

Qua nd closest to the sun, the carbon-composite solar shields of 4½-inch thickness of the probe will have to withstand temperatures close to 2500 degrees Fahrenheit. Because of its design, the interior of the spacecraft and its instruments will remain at a comfortable room temperature.

The probe will reach a speed of 450 000 km / h around the sun. On Earth, this speed would allow someone to travel from Philadelphia to Washington in a second, the agency said. The mission will also go through the origin of solar particles with the highest energy.

The mission is scheduled to end in June 2025.

"The solar probe is heading for a region of space that has never been explored before," Parker said. "It's very exciting that we're finally going to take a look at it.We would like to have more detailed measurements of what's going on in the solar wind.I am sure there will be surprises Meme it There are always some. "