Made history: A spacecraft “touched” the sun

The Parker spacecraft touched the sun

(Photo: NASA)

“This is a big step for the Parker probe, and a huge step for the study of the sun.”. This is what they said last night (Tuesday) at NASA after it became official that the US space agency’s spacecraft “touched the sun”. The Parker solar probe Became the first in history to enter the upper atmosphere of the sun, also known as the corona of the sun. Scientists announced this yesterday, at a conference of the American Geophysical Association.

The Parker lander actually reached the Sun Crown in April, the eighth time it has approached the Sun. The scientists said it took several months to get the data, and several more months to confirm them. “It’s incredibly exciting,” said physicist Nur Rawapi of Johns Hopkins University, a member of the project. During her stay in Atara, Parker sampled particles and magnetic fields there.

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13 million km from the sun. Imaging of Parker and the solar winds

(Photo: Johns Hopkins APL / NASA via AP)

Parker, launched in 2018, was 13 million kilometers from the center of the sun when it first crossed the boundary between the solar atmosphere and the outgoing solar winds.

“For the first and most dramatic time of all we were there for about five hours,” said Justin Casper of the University of Michigan. He said five hours “may not sound like much,” but noted that Parker was moving at the same time at a tremendous speed of 100 miles per second and covered a huge distance in those five hours.

Rawafi said the corona of the sun looked more dusty than expected. He said future trips in it would help scientists better understand the source of the solar wind and how it is warming and accelerating into space. “Just as landing on the moon made it possible to better understand how it formed, touching the sun will help scientists uncover important information about the sun and its effect on the solar system,” NASA said. Will help scientists understand the solar flares that sometimes disrupt life on Earth.

Preliminary data showed that Parker also entered the crown at the ninth time it approached the sun, in August, but scientists said it was necessary to further analyze the data before making a final determination. The tenth time she got close to the sun happened last month. In total, Parker is expected to orbit the sun 24 times and approach only a distance of only 6 million km from the center of the sun.

NASA hopes Parker will help explain three key mysteries that scientists are still looking for an answer to: why the sun’s crown warms to temperatures 300 times higher than its surface, how the solar wind, the solar wind, moves at such high speeds, and how the sun emits particles at half the speed of light.

Eventually the lander will accumulate insane speed and move at 724,000 km / h. NASA said it would actually be the fastest spacecraft in the history of the US space agency. At such a speed, you can get from New York to London in two minutes. It will reach places where the temperature is 1,371 degrees – but a protective layer of carbon about 12 centimeters thick will protect it.

The spacecraft is about the size of a small private vehicle and weighs about 630 kilograms. In 1958. The solar exploration mission is expected to continue until June 2025. The new findings were published in the American Physical Society magazine.

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