These highly energetic particles can also wreak havoc with our electronics on Earth, in orbit, and in space. What is accelerating some particles, very few, to near the speed of light (creating highly energetic particles)?Īnswering that third question holds potentially great significance for our lives here on Earth and our quest to move beyond Earth and out into the solar system because these highly energetic particles are highly charged and can penetrate walls of spacecraft and be harmful for astronauts – like giving them a constant x-ray.What is the mechanism that heats and accelerates particles in the corona?.Why and how is the solar wind accelerated to supersonic speeds inside the corona?.Mission planning calls for the probe to approach the Sun to within 6 million km (3.7 million miles) or just 0.04 AU – 8.5 solar radii.ĭuring its mission, Parker Solar will seek to answer three very important questions about the Sun: Unlike other solar telescopes and missions, the Parker Solar Probe will venture where no probe has gone before – into the Sun’s corona. Parker proposed that the solar corona was heated by a myriad of tiny nanoflares – solar flare-like brightenings that occur across the entirety of the Sun’s surface. Parker is best known for developing the theory of supersonic solar wind and correctly predicting the shape of the Heliospheric current sheet (or Parker spiral shape) of the solar magnetic field in the outer solar system.
Sun corona asteroid Patch#
The mission patch for the Parker Solar Probe flagship science mission to “touch the Sun.” (Credit: NASA)Ī pioneering astrophysicist, Dr. Parker – making him the first living person to have a NASA spacecraft named after him.
Sun corona asteroid plus#
All prior missions named after people were done so after their deaths in honor of their accomplishments and contributions to science.īreaking with this tradition, NASA renamed Solar Probe Plus the Parker Solar Probe after Dr.
In so doing, NASA radically departed from its previous mission naming practices. Originally called the Solar Probe Plus, the mission was renamed on in honor of Dr. By 2012, as the mission moved into its design phase, the launch was pushed to 2018. Six years later, the mission concept was resurrected as a “new mission start” in 2009 with an aim to launch a new solar probe in 2015. Bush Administration’s restructuring of NASA to focus more on research and development and address management shortcomings in the wake of the Space Shuttle Columbia accident. The original mission concept, the Solar Orbiter, was canceled in 2003 as part of the George W. The Parker Solar Probe began as an idea in the Outer Planet/Solar Probe program of NASA in the 1990s.
The probe launched atop at United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket on Sunday from the Cape’s SLC-37 at 03:31 Eastern. Eugene Parker, will unlock many of the mysteries still held by our solar system’s star. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, named after Dr. A mission nearly 60 years in the making has launched on a historic flight to become the first spacecraft to “touch the surface of the Sun”.
0 kommentar(er)
