NASA’s most advanced spacecraft for solar exploration just made one other close flyby of the sun.
The Parker Solar Probe conducted its sixteenth perihelion pass on Thursday morning (June 22), cruising through the sun’s superhot outer atmosphere, called the corona.
Because the spacecraft flies through the corona’s blazing plasma, where temperatures can climb above 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (1 million degrees Celsius), the instruments onboard the probe are kept at a snug 85 degrees F (29.4 degrees C). That is resulting from the probe’s heat shield, which is 4.5 inches (11.4 centimeters) thick and may safely reach temperatures hotter than 2,500 degrees F (1,400 degrees C).
Related: Parker Solar Probe: First spacecraft to ‘touch’ the sun
The Parker Solar Probe launched in August 2018 and was placed right into a highly elliptical orbit across the sun. During its perihelion passes through the corona, the spacecraft can dip below 6 million miles (9.6 million kilometers) above the sun’s surface, which is often known as the photosphere.
The spacecraft is scheduled to make 24 close passes of the photosphere during its primary mission, collecting data scientists will use to enhance stellar models and the flexibility to forecast space weather events that may pose a danger to satellites and power grids.
The photosphere has a median temperature around 10,000 degrees F (5,800 degrees C), making it tons of of times cooler than the coronal layer above, and that is something that makes scientists scratch their heads. Simulations of the sun’s internal nuclear fusion reactions suggest that regions of the sun should increase in temperature and pressure the closer they’re to the core of the star.
The sun’s corona is difficult to check from the surface of Earth; it’s outshined by the photosphere, which is the large, vivid yellow ball you see within the sky while you have a look at the sun. (But don’t have a look at the sun!) Nevertheless, the corona is visible from Earth during total solar eclipses, which is an element of the explanation that solar scientists are so enthusiastic about these cosmic events.
By studying the disparities in temperature between different layers of the sun’s atmosphere, researchers hope to achieve a greater understanding of the method causing the star’s coronal heating, and the way that affects the acceleration of the solar wind, the stream of charged particles flowing repeatedly from the sun.
Along with the Parker Solar Probe’s 24 planned dips through the sun’s corona, seven flybys of the planet Venus were also built into the spacecraft’s mission. These are designed to slow the probe’s velocity and calibrate its trajectory, in accordance with NASA’s website. There are two such passes left for the spacecraft, with the following projected for Aug. 21. The Parker Solar Probe reached its fifteenth perihelion on March 17 of this yr and can return for its seventeenth on Sept. 27.