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Next week, NASA is scheduled to send human technology closer to a star than ever before. What they learn could change our understanding of, well, the whole galaxy.
The Parker Solar Probe is a mission set to orbit the Sun at just 3.8 million miles. Compare that to Earth's average distance of 93 million miles, or Mercury's average distance of 36 million miles. The spacecraft will need to shield itself from temperatures as high as 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit in order to find answers to the many questions scientists still have about our Sun and stars in general.
"The message is simple," Jim Garvin, chief scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, told Gizmodo. "By understanding our Sun in this way, [it will] connect the dots between how the Sun works, how it affects the Earth and other worlds throughout the Solar System, and... how we look at planetary systems around other stars."
[...] The probe is at Cape Canaveral, loaded into a Delta IV heavy rocket. Following its August 11-at-the-earliest launch, it will hurtle towards the Solar System's center at speeds as fast as 430,000 miles per hour, according to a NASA fact sheet. It will pass our neighboring planet Venus seven times for a gravitationally assisted slow down, studying our gassy neighbor along the way, before arriving at its final solar orbit.
[...] The mission comes with extreme challenges that the project engineers have done their best to prepare for. An 8-foot-wide, 4.5-inch-thick carbon-composite shield protects the probe, keeping its instruments at a cozy 85 degrees Fahrenheit, according to NASA. The outside face of the shield is coated with white ceramic paint to further reflect heat away from the probe.
Source: https://gizmodo.com/nasas-sun-probe-set-to-launch-next-week-on-its-journey-1828053654
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday August 06 2018, @12:00AM (2 children)
I really hope they don't get lost at night.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @12:16AM (1 child)
Fear ye not - they have GPS.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 06 2018, @01:23AM
Gravitational positioning sensor? :^)
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Monday August 06 2018, @12:20AM (3 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker_Solar_Probe [wikipedia.org]
The plan is to fly by Venus seven times throughout the mission to refine the spacecraft's orbit, so it will probably snap some pics of Venus as well.
---
Sun [wikipedia.org] Facts
Sun's Radius = 695,700 km
Parker Solar Probe's closest approach will be as low as: 0.040 AU (6.0 million km)
Mercury [wikipedia.org] Perihelion = 0.307499 AU (46,001,200 km)
Mercury Aphelion = 0.466697 AU (69,816,900 km)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Monday August 06 2018, @12:46AM
They're sending it to the Sun -- possibly the only place where solar panels make sense. But, they're protecting it with a shield made of incredible Carbon. Otherwise known as beautiful Clean Coal!!!
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Monday August 06 2018, @03:09AM
The timeline is more interesting:
1. the probe will get "in position" (the first minimal perihelion) in 6 years and a bit after launch in which time there'l be 21 (non-minimal) perihelion events
2. they expect at least 24 Sun perihelion events [jhuapl.edu]. Which means only 3 minimal perihelion events are expected - I suspect anything beyond that will be a bonus.
The orbit is highly elongated, with aphelions beyond Mercury's orbit. The min perihelion is just 8.86 solar radii.
I wonder if that white paint on the shield is going to last that long - a carbon-black shield is going to be a hell worse as thermal protection (unless is not solid carbon, but a carbon aerogel [aerogel.org])
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by corey on Tuesday August 07 2018, @02:26AM
Thanks for this, it included all the metric conversions and saved me the effort!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @12:34AM
The State of Washington public education system and related interest groups are engaging in fraud and embezzlement: http://www.courts.wa.gov/appellate_trial_courts/SupremeCourt/?fa=supremecourt.McCleary_Education [wa.gov]
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Monday August 06 2018, @01:34AM
One nice thing is that there is, perhaps counterintuitively, no fire on the sun. There's oxygen to speak of, and fire flows from the process of rapid oxygenation.
Thus, your spacecraft is not going to catch fire and burn up. cool!
It might melt down to slag, or have its atoms stripped to a quantum mechanical sour mash, but it won't catch fire.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by requerdanos on Monday August 06 2018, @01:36AM (1 child)
For some reason I left out the word "no" between "There's" and "oxygen". Please mentally insert it.
(Score: 3, Touché) by coolgopher on Monday August 06 2018, @05:51AM
no
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 06 2018, @09:09AM (1 child)
For a space-related news piece it is sure full of imperials.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday August 06 2018, @03:25PM
That's because every empire wants to own the sun.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"