A spacecraft is about to fly into the sun’s atmosphere for the first time

Almost no one writes about Parker Solar Probe anymore.

The spacecraft certainly received some attention when it was launched. It is, after all, the fastest object ever built by humans. At its maximum speed, which is affected by the sun’s gravity, the probe reaches a speed of 430,000 miles per hour, or more than one-sixth of 1 percent of the speed of light. That kind of speed will get you from New York City to Tokyo in less than a minute.

The Parker Solar Probe also has the distinction of being the first NASA spacecraft named after a living person. At the time of its launch, in August 2018, physicist Eugene Parker was 91 years old.

But in the six years since the probe blasted through outer space and flew by the sun? Not much. Let’s face it, the Sun’s astrophysical properties and complex structure are not something most people think about on a daily basis.

However, the tiny probe — its mass is less than a metric ton, and its scientific payload is only about 110 pounds (50 kg) — is about to orbit its star. In every sense of the word. On Christmas Eve, the Parker Solar Probe will reach its closest distance yet to the Sun. It will reach a distance of only 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) from the surface of the sun, and will fly into the solar atmosphere for the first time.

Yes, it will be very hot. Scientists estimate that the probe’s heat shield will withstand temperatures exceeding 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,371 degrees Celsius) on Christmas Eve, which is pretty much the polar opposite of the North Pole.

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I spoke with NASA’s chief of science, Nikki Fox, to understand why the probe was tortured in this way. Before moving to NASA headquarters, Fox was the project scientist for the Parker Solar Probe, and she explained that scientists really wanted to understand the origins of the solar wind.

This is the stream of charged particles emanating from the Sun’s outer layer, the corona. Fox explained that scientists have been wondering about this particular mystery for more than half a century.

“Quite simply, we want to find the birthplace of the solar wind,” she said.

Back in the 1950s, before we had satellites or spacecraft to measure the properties of the Sun, Parker predicted the existence of these solar winds. The scientific community was very skeptical about this idea, in fact many mocked Parker, until the Mariner 2 mission began measuring the solar wind in 1962.

When the scientific community began to embrace Parker’s theory, they wanted to know more about the solar wind, which is an essential component of the entire solar system. Although the solar wind is invisible to the naked eye, when you see the aurora on Earth, this solar wind is interacting with the Earth’s magnetosphere in a particularly violent way.