On December 24, Parker, NASA’s solar probe, was flying a few million miles above the sun, marking the spacecraft’s closest confrontation with the scorching star. The encounter agitated the team behind the Parker Solar Probe mission, and they hoped that the spacecraft would survive. On Thursday, Parker contacted the space station and sent them four signals, indicating that it was in good condition and reassuring the team.
Due to Venus’s gravity, Parker has been shifting closer toward the sun with a series of flybys— a space flight maneuver in which a spacecraft passes close to a planet for observation. Near the start of the Parker Solar Probe mission, the team was concerned about the spacecraft drifting closer to the blazing star. However, as Parker made more successful orbits, the group’s confidence increased.
Astronauts still worried about Parker perishing in its encounter with the sun because of uncertainties about whether the machine could endure the star’s harsh conditions. However, the solar probe was built to withstand blistering temperatures with its heat shield, which was designed to allow the front of the spacecraft to endure the scorching heat of the sun’s outer atmosphere. While the front of the machine withstands millions of degrees of heat, the back stays at a casual temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit. The probe was also built to be more suited for stormy solar environments, which are caused by the sun’s peak activity levels.
Joseph Westlake, the director of heliophysics at NASA, commented on the spacecraft. “Literally one side [the front] is at a temperature that is unfathomable. And the back of it is a hot, sunny day.”
Parker’s most recent flyby happened on Christmas Eve at 6:53 a.m. Eastern Time. The solar data from this observation is expected to reach Earth on New Year’s Day and will help scientists study the sun, including the solar wind’s origin, a stream of particles that create a protective barrier around the solar system. The information collected from the flyby will also help scientists understand how the corona, the sun’s outer atmosphere, can be hotter than the solar surface below. In the meantime, scientists are awaiting the arrival of the data from the machine’s latest flyby. Dr. Rawafi, a project scientist for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission, says, “That’s actually the thing we are waiting for — if there is anything new that we didn’t see before.”
Parker’s journey isn’t finished yet, as the machine has two more flybys. Though, scientists hope the spacecraft’s voyage can last longer. The sun was in a quiet phase called the solar minimum when Parker was launched in 2018, but, by this past October, NASA stated that sun activity had reached its peak.
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