Recently, a ship smaller than a bus achieved a number of notable milestones in space exploration. The NASA Parker probe It established itself as the fastest object ever built. Furthermore, among all human devices, it is the one that came closest to the Sun. Looking to the future, scientists from the American organization expect it to continue breaking records.
Revolutionize our understanding of the Sun. Such is the ambitious purpose of this mission that was launched approximately five years ago, and that will continue its course with new approaches. “The spacecraft is gradually orbiting closer to the solar surface than any before, within the orbit of Mercury. Its job is to collect measurements and images to expand our knowledge about the origin and evolution of the wind that comes from the star. It also makes critical contributions to forecasting changes in the space environment,” the space agency explains.
As we will examine throughout this review with juicy details of NASA’s Parker probe, this instrument deepens research that concerns us, here on our planet. So much so that study the consequences of the solar wind It is relevant to mitigate its impact on land infrastructure. Furthermore, the development of the ship pushes the limits in research relating to thermal resistance.
Quick and exciting facts about NASA’s Parker probe
- With a diameter of 2.4 meters, the ship is smaller than a bus. Its size is also smaller than the James Webb Space Telescope, which is in orbit. In an upright position, four average-sized humans would be needed, one on top of the other, to equal the height of the probe.
- It weighs just over 635 kilograms. “She is very light compared to other ships,” notes the space agency. For dimension, SpaceX’s Starship has a combined height of 120 meters and a weight close to 4,000 tons.
- NASA’s Parker probe is, at the time of publication of this review, at 156.7 million kilometers from Earth. That distance is equivalent to about 250,000 trips from Madrid to Barcelona.
- Also at this moment — in the image we see the indication “live”—, Parker Solar Probe is 100 million kilometers from the Sun. On September 27, it made its closest approach when it passed “just” 7.26 million kilometers from the surface of the large star. Earlier, in 2021, it became the first spacecraft to fly through the solar corona, which is the outermost layer of the Sun.
- In its recent approach, the seventeenth since it was launched in 2018, NASA’s Parker probe reached a speed of 635,266 kilometers per hour. That is almost 1,700 times faster than the record achieved by a Formula 1 car. In addition, such a figure on the speedometer is enough to travel from New York to Tokyo in approximately one minute.
Its launch and visits to Venus
The plan for reveal the mysteries of the Sun was launched on August 12, 2018, when the probe was launched from the United States Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. To get away from Earth it used one of the most powerful rockets, the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy. The search for power was not whimsical: a lot of energy is required for this trip, 55 times more than going to Mars.
On its way to the Sun, NASA’s Parker probe visits the vicinity of Venus, the second planet in the Solar System in order of proximity to the star, in that aspect only surpassed by Mercury. According to the North American agency, the purpose is not to appreciate the Venusian landscapes. “There it takes advantage of gravitational assistance to bring its orbit closer to the Sun,” they indicate. Now, unlike most of the maneuvers of that species – in which the energy of the gravitational field of a planet or satellite is used to achieve acceleration – Parker reduced its speed and then moved towards its destination.
NASA’s Parker probe and the benefits of research on site
The ship’s hot adventure seeks to examine, from a privileged position, a region of the planetary system that contains the keys to understand the activity and great influence of the Sun. Based on this, there is an interesting detail: the probe was named in honor of the doctor Eugene Newman Parkeran American astronomer who died last year, a pioneer in research on the solar wind.
Long ago, in the 1950s, the astrophysicist developed a theory to explain the impressive temperature in the Sun’s corona, whose material continuously expands outward and in all directions, forming the solar wind. The scientist, some years before his death, observed the launch of NASA’s Parker probe from the Kennedy Space Center. That was the agency’s first tribute to a living specialist. The baptism of other instruments, for example the James Webb Telescope, has been posthumous.
“While Dr. Parker predicted the existence of the solar wind 60 years ago, there are still things we don’t understand. (Many aspects) remain a great mystery,” experts acknowledge. The fundamental step of the probe launched in 2018 is the possibility of study solar phenomena from the scene. Or, at least, a little closer. “Our only measurements occurred from Earth. For that journey, the solar wind has had to travel tens of millions of kilometers to diffuse, cool and mix. Instead, measurements from the Parker probe, ‘only’ a few million kilometers from the surface of the Sun, reveal new details that should help shed light on the processes that send it hurtling into space,” explains NASA. .
Why is it relevant to study the Sun?
We are far from our star, about 150 million kilometers. However, hopefully, we see it daily. It is known that its light and heat are essential for life on Earth. His influence goes further. Therefore, the purpose of NASA’s Parker probe is to achieve greater compression of the big burning starwhose influence spreads to the rest of the system, and also affects life on our planet.
With its flight through one of the most powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on record, the spacecraft validated a theory that has been several decades in development. It is the one that indicates that CMEs interact with planetary dust. As we pointed out on the occasion in HypertextualIt’s about a key discovery to predict space weather. This knowledge is cardinal: large eruptions in the Sun’s outer atmosphere can affect the functioning of satellites, the technologies we use to communicate and navigation systems. They can potentially disrupt terrestrial electrical grids.
In this regard, the agency’s scientists point out: “One question we hope to answer with the Parker probe is how some particles can accelerate away from the Sun at mind-boggling speeds. These particles move so fast that they can reach Earth in less than half an hour. “Eventually, they interfere with the electronics on board the satellites, without warning.”
The mission that has NASA’s Parker probe as its protagonist also focuses on coronal heating problem. “Temperatures (in that region) rise to more than 1 million degrees Celsius, while the Sun’s surface below boils at a ‘mild’ 5,000°C. “The reason why this occurs remains one of the biggest unanswered questions in astrophysics,” they comment.
Background, companions and upcoming plans for NASA’s Parker probe
The emergence of this instrument on the special scene brought advances with respect to the feats that the spacecraft had previously achieved. Helios 2which in 1976 approached within 43 million kilometers of the Sun. To have a dimension, Mercury, the planet closest to the star, orbits about 58 million kilometers from the solar surface.
It is interesting to note How NASA’s Parker Probe Holds Up on its journey towards the Sun. The key is to understand the differences between heat and temperature. The latter measures the speed with which the particles move, while the former is the total amount of energy they transfer. “The corona is incredibly thin and there are very few particles there to transfer energy. So while the particles move quickly (high temperature), they don’t actually transfer much energy to the spacecraft (low heat).”
In a popular article, NASA explains that this notion is understood with the following example. It’s the difference between putting your hand in a lit oven, or in a pot of boiling water.
In addition to this, the ship has an advanced design to not melt in space. It is equipped with a heat shield almost 12 centimeters thick, the details of which we see in the video. It has a carbon composite foam sandwiched between two plates, also made of carbon. It is so efficient that while the front part receives about 1,400 degrees Celsius, the instruments behind are fresh, at a pleasant 30 ºC. In addition, it has a water circulation system in its solar panels. On the other hand, on the sides of its heat shield, it has seven sensors that alert the central computer when it should correct its position.
As we have in Hypertextual, NASA’s Parker probe is not the only one trying to reveal solar intrigues. The European Space Agency (ESA) does the same with the Solar Orbiter spacecraft. For its part, the Indian space agency recently launched a mission whose objective is to send a satellite to a place known as L1, located 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, which allows an uninterrupted view of the Sun.
NASA and ESA plans are moving forward in line. “The possibility of using both the Solar Orbiter and the Parker Solar Probe has really opened up a whole new dimension,” said Gary Zank, a researcher at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, United States, and co-author of a study recently published in The Astrophysical Journal Letterswhich analyzes the data jointly.
Meanwhile, NASA’s Parker probe continues its journey. At each approach, known as perihelion, it will equal or exceed its own marks. After the aforementioned 7.26 million kilometers of distance from the Sun achieved at the end of September, is expected to reach only 6.2 million kilometers. It will also increase its acceleration: scientists estimate that it will reach 700,000 kilometers per hour. In principle, it is expected to operate until the end of 2025, thus reaching a useful life of seven years.