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Parker Solar Probe about to launch, will orbit close to sun
Posted on 8/13/18 at 2:45 pm
Posted on 8/13/18 at 2:45 pm
LINK
That’s about to change. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will launch as soon as Saturday. And, over the course of a seven year mission, Parker will orbit the Sun two dozen times, with its final three orbits coming as close as 3.9 million miles from our star’s surface. This is some 4 percent the distance between Earth and the Sun.
..
Using Parker, scientists hope to unravel some of the outstanding mysteries surrounding the star of our solar system. Chief among those is why its outer atmosphere, called the corona, can reach scalding hot temperatures of some 2 million degrees Fahrenheit, while 1,000 miles below, the surface of the Sun is relatively “cool” at 10,000 degrees F.
..
Parker is endowed with four different instruments, which will analyze the Sun’s electric and magnetic fields, plasma, and energetic particles, as well as image its solar wind. The only instruments that must brave the heat of the Sun, protruding from behind the safety of the shield, are electric field antennas and a small plasma detector. The wires of these tools are crafted from robust niobium, and encased in a protective layer of sapphire crystal tubes.
Wiki
That’s about to change. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will launch as soon as Saturday. And, over the course of a seven year mission, Parker will orbit the Sun two dozen times, with its final three orbits coming as close as 3.9 million miles from our star’s surface. This is some 4 percent the distance between Earth and the Sun.
..
Using Parker, scientists hope to unravel some of the outstanding mysteries surrounding the star of our solar system. Chief among those is why its outer atmosphere, called the corona, can reach scalding hot temperatures of some 2 million degrees Fahrenheit, while 1,000 miles below, the surface of the Sun is relatively “cool” at 10,000 degrees F.
..
Parker is endowed with four different instruments, which will analyze the Sun’s electric and magnetic fields, plasma, and energetic particles, as well as image its solar wind. The only instruments that must brave the heat of the Sun, protruding from behind the safety of the shield, are electric field antennas and a small plasma detector. The wires of these tools are crafted from robust niobium, and encased in a protective layer of sapphire crystal tubes.
Wiki
This post was edited on 8/13/18 at 2:49 pm
6
Posted on 8/13/18 at 2:48 pm to DavidTheGnome
Am I the only one that is constantly amazed at how stars can burn for billions of years? It's incomprehensible the amount of energy the sun burns on a daily basis.
Posted on 8/13/18 at 2:50 pm to DavidTheGnome
quote:
Parker is endowed
Posted on 8/13/18 at 2:51 pm to DavidTheGnome
I hope they made it out of fireproof materials.
Posted on 8/13/18 at 2:51 pm to DavidTheGnome
Man this seems like a shite ton of money to spend on what is a one time use instrument.
Don’t confuse me for someone who wants to cut scientific exploration of the cosmos because I want it fully funded and more manned space flights because they are incredible, but what knowledge do they think they will gain from this?
Don’t confuse me for someone who wants to cut scientific exploration of the cosmos because I want it fully funded and more manned space flights because they are incredible, but what knowledge do they think they will gain from this?
Posted on 8/13/18 at 2:52 pm to offshoretrash
quote:
It's incomprehensible the amount of energy the sun burns on a daily basis.
We are really in need of a hybrid sun. The Sun is the main factor in global warming.
Posted on 8/13/18 at 2:54 pm to Oilfieldbiology
quote:
Man this seems like a shite ton of money to spend on what is a one time use instrument. Don’t confuse me for someone who wants to cut scientific exploration of the cosmos because I want it fully funded and more manned space flights because they are incredible, but what knowledge do they think they will gain from this?
Biggest thing is finding out why the corona is so much hotter than the surface. I'm sure there's tons of other things learned about solar wind etc. Things used to predict solar storms that effect satellites/electronics here on Earth.
It's expensive but an absolute drop in the bucket compared to the money pit of the ISS.
Posted on 8/13/18 at 2:58 pm to DavidTheGnome
I love these type of fact finding missions like smashing a sattelite into a comet. I hope they get tons and tons of data from this
Posted on 8/13/18 at 2:59 pm to offshoretrash
quote:
Am I the only one that is constantly amazed at how stars can burn for billions of years? It's incomprehensible the amount of energy the sun burns on a daily basis.
quote:
The sun’s energy engine is essentially a perpetual thermonuclear explosion, just on a much larger scale. Just to give you a bit of perspective, the Tsar Bomba released about 2.1x1017 Joules of energy, while the Earth receives about 1.7x1017 Joules of energy from the sun in a second. So it’s safe to say the sun’s energy output dwarfs even the largest thermonuclear bomb detonations.
But what causes these sun’s massive releases of energy? In a word: fusion. In both a warhead and the core of the sun, hydrogen atoms are fused together under enormous pressure. The process of hydrogen fusion expels huge amounts of energy and forms another element, helium, a common thread for both. But the means by which fusion is initiated is completely different between the two.
quote:
The sun, on the other hand, isn’t just a single nuclear explosion; it’s a perpetual series of them. At the sun’s core, hydrogen is being turned into helium. And just like in a nuclear bomb, massive amounts of energy are being released, but all that energy is self-contained due to the sun’s mass and enormous gravitational pull.
After energy is produced in the sun’s core, it can take up to 100,000 years to reach the surface. Once it’s in space, it only takes that energy about eight minutes to travel the 93-million miles to the Earth’s surface.
For those space and science nerds out there like me. Fascinating stuff.
Especially that every second, the earth receives nearly the energy equivalent of the largest nuke ever from the sun.
This post was edited on 8/13/18 at 3:00 pm
Posted on 8/13/18 at 3:03 pm to Oilfieldbiology
quote:
what knowledge do they think they will gain from this?
Posted on 8/13/18 at 3:05 pm to DavidTheGnome
What a waste of money. How is something supposed to orbit the sun and not burn up? Another case of the NASA nerds having no common sense.
Posted on 8/13/18 at 3:08 pm to btnetigers
quote:
I hope they made it out of fireproof materials.
No need; they're gonna fly it out there at nighttime.
Posted on 8/13/18 at 3:12 pm to Oilfieldbiology
quote:
Man this seems like a shite ton of money to spend on what is a one time use instrument.
They're going to start receiving data shortly and the thing's going to orbit the sun for 7 years, making 24 close approaches and using Venus periodically to go lower and lower. It's not as if they're diving into the sun.
Bro, do you even RTFA?
EDIT: Goddammit. I bit.
This post was edited on 8/13/18 at 3:17 pm
Posted on 8/13/18 at 7:20 pm to DavidTheGnome
Posted on 8/13/18 at 11:34 pm to offshoretrash
quote:
Am I the only one that is constantly amazed at how stars can burn for billions of years? It's incomprehensible the amount of energy the sun burns on a daily basis.
No. I fully expect it.
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