A NASA Research has been launched to create these profiles Christmas Air as the closest thing made to the sun is the sun.
Tomorrow at 11:53 GMT, the Parker Solar Probe will it only passes at a distance of 6.1 million kilometers from the sun.
That’s about eight times the distance between our home star and the nearest planet. Mercury.
When it reaches its closest point, the probe will also become the fastest human-made object as it reaches 430,000 mph (692,000 kph).
In a moment comparable to the 1969 moon landing, Parker ‘touches’ the surface of the sun to collect vital data.
During the short flyby, the probe will pass through the sun’s extremely hot atmosphere called the corona – the beginning of storms that can cause chaos on Earth.
Although Parker’s probe will withstand temperatures in excess of 1,400°C (2,550°F) its near-destructive protection should allow it to survive extreme conditions.
Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe mission manager at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), says: ‘No man-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will definitely be there. returning data from an unknown field.’
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe (pictured) will make history this Christmas when it becomes the closest artificial object to the sun.
The Parker Solar Probe was it was launched at Cape Canaveral in August 2018 before it began its 93 million mile (149 million km) journey to the sun.
The goal was to get more information about the quality of sunlight by flying very close to space.
Because gravity is so strong at this distance, the probe must travel very fast to avoid entering the Sun.
To do this, the probe has been repeatedly ‘shooting’ the sun and Venus, rising rapidly and passing each way.
In 2021, Parker passed his first solar orbit, entering an area where the temperature can reach 1 million degrees Centigrade for five hours.
Since then, Parker has completed 21 solar flares, but tomorrow the probe will break its record for speed and distance.
After completing his seventh orbit around Venus in November, Parker is now using “gravity” flying seven times closer to the stars than any other spacecraft.
Passing 3.8 million kilometers (6.1 million miles), Parker will collect particles from the corona inside a special instrument called the Solar Probe Cup.
The Parker probe will pass within 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) of the sun, traveling at a speed of 30,000 mph (692,000 kph).
At the same time, Parker will exceed its previous speed of 395,000 mph (635,000 kmph), according to NASA.
At its maximum speed, the probe will be traveling 300 times faster than a Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jet or 200 times faster than a gun bullet.
Arik Posner, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe scientist, said: ‘This is one example of NASA’s bold work, doing something no one has done before to answer long-standing questions about our universe.’
To prevent melting during this process, the Parker Solar Probe is designed to withstand high temperatures.
The body of the probe itself is protected by a 2.4-meter (8ft) heat shield made of a type of carbon foam.
Although the shield is 11cm (4.5 inches) thick, its material design makes it virtually indestructible.
Johns Hopkins APL reported in a mission briefing: ‘One yard behind it, where the body of the ship lies, about room temperature.
‘And all of its systems will need to be in good working order for Parker to collect data from this dynamic environment near a star that no spacecraft has ever attempted to navigate.’
As it passes, the probe will collect particles from the Sun in the ‘Solar Probe Cup’ (pictured) which is made of Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum, a metal alloy with a melting point of 2,349°C (4,260°F)
Meanwhile, the Solar Probe Cup is made of Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum, a metal alloy with a melting point of 2,349 °C (4,260 °F).
However, the role of this research is more than moving quickly and withstanding high temperatures.
That feedback could make a big difference to people’s protection against dangerous solar fires.
Because of the extreme heat and magnetic field, scientists have been unable to look inside the sun.
However, this region is the origin of plasma and magnetic fields that cause solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
As the sun reaches its peak this year, scientists have warned that the world is too late for the greatest possible warming. causing widespread power outages and damaging satellite networks.
By gathering data in this area, NASA says the Parker Solar Probe will help scientists better predict the weather in space.
This could buy Earth the time it needs to protect our most vulnerable systems in the event of a catastrophic solar flare.
This will help scientists understand what happens in the superheated atmosphere. This could help us predict a catastrophic solar flare that could wreak havoc on Earth (stock photo)
Mr Posner says: ‘We can’t wait to receive the first sample from space and start receiving scientific data in the coming weeks.’
Parker will send the beacon on Friday, December 27th to confirm it survived the fly with more to follow soon.
The probe is expected to make four more close flybys in 2025, but none as close as tomorrow.
And although the spaceship will eventually be torn apart by the sun’s gravity, the heat shield may continue to orbit for thousands of years to come.
