NASA spacecraft attempts closest-ever approach to the sun

The Manila Times

NASA spacecraft attempts closest-ever approach to the sun  NASA's Parker Solar Probe was expected to make history on Tuesday, December 24, by flying into the sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona, on a mission to help scientists learn more about Earth's closest star.  Parker was on course to fly 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) from the sun's surface at 6:53 a.m. EST (1153 GMT). With the spacecraft out of contact, it will be Friday before mission operators confirm its health following the close flyby.  Moving at up to 430,000 mph (692,000 kph), the spacecraft will endure temperatures of up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982 degrees Celsius), NASA said on its website.  When the probe first passed into the solar atmosphere in 2021, it found new details about the boundaries of the sun's atmosphere and collected close-up images of coronal streamers, cusp-like structures seen during solar eclipses.  Since the spacecraft launched in 2018, the probe has been gradually circling closer towards the sun, using flybys of Venus to gravitationally pull it into a tighter orbit with the sun.  One instrument aboard the spacecraft captured visible light from Venus, giving scientists a new way to see through the planet's thick clouds to the surface below, NASA said.  NASA HANDOUT/NASA TV  Subscribe to The Manila Times Channel - https://tmt.ph/YTSubscribe    Visit our website at https://www.manilatimes.net    Follow us:  Facebook - https://tmt.ph/facebook  Instagram - https://tmt.ph/instagram  Twitter - https://tmt.ph/twitter  DailyMotion - https://tmt.ph/dailymotion    Subscribe to our Digital Edition - https://tmt.ph/digital    Check out our Podcasts:  Spotify - https://tmt.ph/spotify  Apple Podcasts - https://tmt.ph/applepodcasts  Amazon Music - https://tmt.ph/amazonmusic  Deezer: https://tmt.ph/deezer  Tune In: https://tmt.ph/tunein   #themanilatimes  #tmtnews  #nasa  #parkersolarprobe

Transcript

00:00you

00:30That's right. So NASA's Parker Solar Probe, which launched in 2018, has been using Venus

00:40Gravity Assist to get closer and closer to the sun. And most recently, it had a Venus

00:45Gravity Assist, and so now it's going to fly within 3.83 million miles of the surface

00:50of the sun, which is closer than any human-made object has ever gone before.

01:00We have never had a human-made object so close to the sun. To get that close, we had to use

01:15Venus to have our gravity assist to slow Parker down so that it could get that close. Also,

01:21we had to not melt. That's why Parker has this heat shield that holds the instruments

01:26at room temperature and keeps the heat of the sun away. And these are just amazing feats,

01:31and so it's so amazing that we are so close and really getting to measure in detail this

01:36material up close.

01:56We're here at solar maximum, which is the time that the sun is the most dynamic and

02:17it has explosions all the time, these huge coronal mass ejections and solar flares. And

02:23those are the biggest, most energetic explosions in our solar system and actually larger than

02:29the entire planet Earth. They're really just some unbelievable things to observe. And so

02:37by passing this close to the sun, we're able to observe these explosions close up and instead

02:43of having them get all stirred up and blurred by the time they reach the earth, we're getting

02:49to see the pristine processes happening right up close to their origin.

02:5410, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0. Liftoff of the mighty Delta IV Heavy Rocket with NASA's

03:13Parker Solar Probe. A daring mission to shed light on the mysteries of our closest star,

03:19the sun.

03:20Three RS-68s look good in the full thrust mode. Booster is throttling down to the partial

03:31thrust mode. One minute, 45 seconds into flight.

03:44NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

03:46California Institute of Technology

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