Parker Solar Probe will travel through the sun’s atmosphere, closer to the surface than any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions — and ultimately providing humanity with the closest-ever observations of a star.
In order to unlock the
mysteries of the sun’s atmosphere, Parker Solar Probe will use Venus’
gravity during seven flybys over nearly seven years to gradually bring its
orbit closer to the sun. The spacecraft will fly through the sun’s atmosphere
as close as 3.9 million miles to our star’s surface, well within the orbit of
Mercury and more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before.
The Aim
The primary science goals for the mission are
to trace how energy and heat move through the solar corona and to explore what
accelerates the solar wind as well as solar energetic particles.
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NASA’s historic mission- Parker Solar Probe- to solve the
mysteries of the Sun has successfully completed its flyby of Venus on October 3rd.
The probe successfully completed its flyby of Venus at a distance of about 1,500 miles during the first Venus gravity assist of the mission. These gravity assists will help the spacecraft tighten its orbit closer and closer to the Sun over the course of the mission.
The probe successfully completed its flyby of Venus at a distance of about 1,500 miles during the first Venus gravity assist of the mission. These gravity assists will help the spacecraft tighten its orbit closer and closer to the Sun over the course of the mission.
Throughout its mission, the probe will make six more Venus gravity
assist and 24 total passes by the Sun. This manoeuvre will change Parker Solar
Probe’s trajectory to take the spacecraft closer to the Sun. It has to find
three following objectives--
1. Trace the flow of energy that heats and accelerates the solar
corona and solar wind.
2. Determine the structure and dynamics of the plasma and magnetic
fields at the sources of the solar wind.
3. Explore mechanisms that accelerate and transport energetic particles.
To Study Corona
The corona is hotter than the
surface of the sun. The corona gives rise to the solar wind, a continuous flow
of charged particles that permeates the solar system. Unpredictable solar winds
cause disturbances in our planet’s magnetic field and can play havoc with
communications technology on Earth. Nasa hopes the findings will enable
scientists to forecast changes in Earth’s space environment.
Why do we study the sun and the
solar wind?
The sun is the only star we can study up close. By studying this
star we live with, we learn more about stars throughout the universe.
The sun is a source of light
and heat for life on Earth. The more we know about it, the more we can
understand how life on Earth developed.
The sun also affects Earth in less familiar ways. It is the source
of the solar wind; a flow of ionized gases from the sun that streams past Earth
at speeds of more than 500 km per second (a million miles per hour).
Disturbances in the solar wind shake Earth’s magnetic field and
pump energy into the radiation belts, part of a set of changes in near-Earth
space known as space weather.
Space weather can change the orbits of satellites, shorten their
lifetimes, or interfere with onboard electronics. The more we learn about what
causes space weather – and how to predict it – the more we can protect the
satellites we depend on.
The solar wind also fills up much of the solar system, dominating
the space environment far past Earth. As we send spacecraft and astronauts
further and further from home, we must understand this space environment just
as early seafarers needed to understand the ocean.
