On Christmas Eve (Dec. 24), a NASA spacecraft made historic previous by coming nearer to the photo voltaic than any spacecraft ever has sooner than.
This record-breaking feat was carried out by the Parker Photograph voltaic Probe, which flew to inside 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of the photo voltaic, braving the blistering heat of our star’s outer ambiance, the corona.
The flyby, which must have occurred at 6:53 a.m. EST (1153 GMT), was the twenty second time Parker had made an in depth passage to the photo voltaic. Though the NASA craft is predicted to make as a minimum two additional flybys of the photo voltaic, that’s the closest it has ever and might ever come to the star. And, to be clear, we’re saying “must have” on account of NASA wanted to lose contact with the spacecraft all through this flyby; the first proof that Parker survived will arrive on Dec. 27, in response to the corporate.
Parker isn’t any stranger to smashing data. On Sept. 21, 2023, Parker hit a velocity of 394,736 miles per hour (635,266 kilometers per hour) to cement its doc as a result of the quickest object ever constructed by humanity.
All through its Christmas Eve passage, scientists say the sun-touching spacecraft would have been touring at 430,000 mph (692,000 kph), moreover breaking its beforehand set velocity doc. For comparability, that is spherical 300 events faster than the very best velocity of a Lockheed Martin jet fighter proper right here on Earth.
This unimaginable feat of velocity could very nicely be reached as a result of assist of seven gravity “boosts” from Venus flybys, the ultimate of which occurred in November 2024.
The Parker Photograph voltaic Probe continues its true mission
Nonetheless breaking data is just a byproduct of Parker’s basic mission: to review additional regarding the photo voltaic. Particularly, the spacecraft needed to brave the 1,800 ranges Fahrenheit (980 ranges Celsius) temperatures it may experience to assemble data regarding the picture voltaic corona.
Scientists hope this data could assist treatment a long-standing thriller regarding the photo voltaic’s outer ambiance, which has troubled them for a few years. The so-called “coronal heating downside” refers back to the fact that, no matter being farther from the photo voltaic’s main provide of vitality (its core), the corona is much hotter than the photo voltaic’s flooring, the photosphere.
Our customary model of stars implies that the nearer one will get to the stellar core, the place basic sequence stars similar to the photo voltaic perform nuclear fusion to forge hydrogen into helium and launch vitality, the hotter it’s going to get.
All the layers of the photo voltaic seem to stringently obey this rule — apart from the corona, which can attain temperatures in additional of two million ranges Fahrenheit (1.1 million ranges Celsius). Spherical 1,000 miles nearer to the provision of the photo voltaic’s heat, the photosphere reaches a relatively balmy 7,400 ranges Fahrenheit (4,100 ranges Celsius). That’s like discovering out this Christmas that your chestnuts solely roast everytime you drive them a mile away from an open fire!
Subsequently, there need to be an further mechanism heating the picture voltaic corona, and scientists are understandably eager to search out what it is.
Parker will proceed its mission, making flybys of the photo voltaic on March 22, 2025, after which its final deliberate flyby will happen on June 19, 2025.
All through every of these approaches, the spacecraft will come practically as close to the photo voltaic as a result of it did on Christmas Eve whereas touring on the similar velocity.