Last Thursday, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe sent a signal back to Earth, affirming that the probe had safely passed through the sun’s atmosphere.
Using Venus’s gravity to control its speed, the probe has orbited the sun 22 times since its launch in 2018. The goal is to collect data on the sun and expand humankind’s understanding of Earth’s star.
NASA and the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory built the Parker Solar Probe as a joint effort, and it was launched in August of 2018. It has an 8-foot-wide shield that protects the probe from the sun’s extreme temperatures, allowing the instruments on the other side to work at around 85 degrees Fahrenheit while the shield reaches up to 2,500 degrees on its closest pass by the sun.
The probe was named after Eugene Parker, a retired astrophysicist, who predicted solar wind. He expressed his excitement regarding the probe at its launch in Florida, saying “Wow, here we go… we’re in for some learning over the next several years.”
“Since its launch…” The probe has measured the sun’s electric and magnetic fields, photographed the sun’s outer atmosphere, and analyzed solar winds. Through the data gathered by this probe, one mystery that scientists aim to solve is the temperature of the corona, or the sun’s outer atmosphere. As of now, scientists don’t know why the corona is significantly hotter than the actual surface of the sun. In addition, scientists are studying solar wind, or “the stream of charged particles— primarily protons and electrons— that continuously flows outward from the sun through the solar system at a speed of about a million miles per hour,” according to journalist Kenneth Chang. This is important because solar wind could harm life on earth. In the past, eruptions from the sun, known as coronal mass ejections, have caused unusually large amounts of particles to be expelled from the sun into space. Scientists hope that understanding solar wind may help to accurately predict, and prepare, for potential incidents in the future.
On its 22nd orbit, the Parker Solar Probe passed the sun at a distance of 3.8 million miles, closer to the sun than any spacecraft has been before. This occurred at 6:53 AM on the morning of the 24th.
For a while, the probe traveled at 430,000 miles per hour, making it the fastest man-made object to ever exist.
The probe signaled its success to the mission specialists two days later, on the night of December 26th. Dr. Nour Rawafi, an astrophysicist at John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, expressed that “[he’s] proud of what has been achieved… It’s really a historic milestone for space exploration.” The data from the probe is expected to arrive on New Year’s Day for scientists to analyze, and the Parker mission will continue for at least one more year. [There is definitely more excitement to come!
Sources:
“After Days of Silence, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Phones Home” by Katrina Miller (December 27, 2024) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/27/science/space/parker-solar-probe-nasa-sun-signal.html
“The Fastest Spacecraft Ever Heads for Its Close-Up With the Sun” by Becky Ferreira (December 24, 2024) https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/24/science/nasa-parker-solar-probe-sun.html
“Parker Solar Probe Launches on NASA Voyage to ‘Touch the Sun’” by Kenneth Chang (August 11, 2018) https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/11/science/parker-solar-probe-launch.html