{"id":13654,"date":"2018-08-09T18:58:33","date_gmt":"2018-08-09T10:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/parker-solar-probe-cleared-for-launch-to-touch-the-sun\/"},"modified":"2018-08-09T18:58:33","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T10:58:33","slug":"parker-solar-probe-cleared-for-launch-to-touch-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/parker-solar-probe-cleared-for-launch-to-touch-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"Parker Solar Probe cleared for launch to \u2018touch the sun\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION<\/p>\n

\"\"
Artist\u2019s concept of Parker Solar Probe. Credit: JHUAPL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NASA managers Thursday cleared the $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe for launch early Saturday on a daring mission to \u201ctouch the sun,\u201d repeatedly flying through its outer atmosphere to find out why the blazing corona is millions of degrees hotter than our star\u2019s visible surface.<\/p>\n

The spacecraft\u2019s instruments also will map the sun\u2019s powerful magnetic field, the torrent of electrically charged particles that are constantly blasted away into space in explosive outbursts and the mechanism that accelerates those particles to extreme velocities.<\/p>\n

The goal is to understand and be better able to predict the behavior of the solar wind that triggers auroral displays on Earth and occasionally wreaks havoc with power grids and satellites.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis space weather has a direct influence, not always positive, on our technology in space, our spacecraft, it disrupts our communications, it creates a hazardous environment for astronauts and in the most extreme cases can actually affect our power grids here on the Earth,\u201d said Alex Young, associate director of NASA\u2019s Heliophysics Science Division.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s of fundamental importance for us to be able to predict this space weather much like we predict weather here on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the sun\u2019s corona, the fiery halo of shimmering light seen during a total solar eclipse, scientists hope the Parker Solar Probe can answer one of their most fundamental questions.<\/p>\n

\"\"
File photo of a solar eclipse, with the sun\u2019s corona visible. Credit: NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re used to the idea that if I am standing next to a camp fire and I walk away from it, it gets cooler,\u201d Young said. \u201cBut this is not what happens on the sun. As we go from the surface of the sun, which is 10,000 degrees, and move up into the corona, we find ourselves quickly at millions of degrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo this is a fundamental question that drives not only how this star works, our sun, but actually all the stars in the universe. And so, these are sort of the three fundamental questions we want to address: the speed of the solar wind, this eruptive phenomena, solar storms, and how is the corona heated?\u201d<\/p>\n

Nicola Fox, the Parker project scientist at Johns Hopkins University\u2019s Applied Physics Laboratory, described the solar probe as \u201cthe coolest hottest mission under the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil you actually go there and touch the sun, you really can\u2019t answer these questions,\u201d she said. \u201cWhy is the corona hotter than the surface of the sun? That defies the laws of nature. It\u2019s like water flowing uphill, it shouldn\u2019t happen. Why in this region does the solar atmosphere suddenly get so energized that it escapes from the hold of the sun and bathes all of the planets? We have not been able to answer these questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Parker Solar Probe was built to do just that.<\/p>\n

Perched atop a heavy-lift United Launch Alliance Delta 4 rocket, Parker will blast off from pad 37 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 3:33 a.m. EDT (GMT-4) Saturday. Forecasters are predicting a 70 percent chance of acceptable weather.<\/p>\n

The powerful Delta 4 Heavy, ULA\u2019s most powerful launcher, will be making only its 10th flight since 2004. It is equipped with a Northrup Grumman solid-fuel upper stage that will act to drop the Parker probe out of Earth\u2019s 18-mile-per-second orbit around the sun, allowing it to fall inward for the first of seven gravity assist flybys of Venus over a planned seven-year mission.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a beast of a rocket,\u201d Fox said of the Delta 4. \u201cWe need to go so fast because we have to lose the influence of the Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Venus flybys will help shape Parker\u2019s trajectory, eventually putting the spacecraft into an elliptical orbit with a low point of just 3.8 million miles from the sun\u2019s visible surface and a high point around the orbit of Venus.<\/p>\n

To put that in perspective, if the Earth and sun were at opposite ends of a football field, the Parker probe would be on the four-yard line nearest the sun during close approach.<\/p>\n

\"\"
An illustration of Parker Solar Probe\u2019s trajectory through the inner solar system following launch. Credit: NASA\/JHUAPL<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Along with being the first spacecraft to fly that close to a star, Parker also will be the fastest, streaking through the outer corona at some 430,000 mph \u2014 fast enough to fly from Washington, DC, to Tokyo in less than one minute.<\/p>\n

Those extremes will not be seen until the later orbits, but Parker will be collecting data during all of its trips around the sun, starting with its first close encounter three months after launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our very first flyby (of the sun), we get a little more than 15 million miles away from the sun\u2019s surface,\u201d Fox said. \u201cWe\u2019re still three times closer than anything has been before. \u2026 The spacecraft is staying over the same area of the sun for many, many days, allowing us to do some really incredible science on our very first flyby.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the corona blazes at millions of degrees, it is a tenuous environment and the heat transferred to the spacecraft will be much less. Even so, Parker\u2019s four-inch-thick 160-pound carbon composite heat shield will be subjected to some 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit during the closest approaches, hotter than flowing lava.<\/p>\n

But on the back side of that heat shield, where Parker\u2019s four instruments, its flight computer and other critical systems are located, temperatures will be maintained at a relatively cool 85 degrees. Its water-cooled solar panels will be retracted behind the heat shield during close approach with just the tips exposed to the blazing light \u2014 and heat \u2014 of the sun.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can put your hand inside your oven and you won\u2019t get burned unless you actually touch a surface,\u201d said Fox. \u201cAnd it really is the same. The corona is a very tenuous plasma.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think about the amount of particles that actually are striking the heat shield and depositing that heat in, the whole thing gets heated up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. Again, I would just say don\u2019t touch the oven surface, don\u2019t touch the three-million-degree plasma!\u201d<\/p>\n

Appropriately enough, the spacecraft is named for Eugene Parker, the University of Chicago scientist who first theorized the existence of the solar wind in 1958. Now 91, Parker, the first living scientist to have a spacecraft named in his honor, flew to the Florida Space Coast to witness his first rocket launch.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince this is a mission into unknown territory, we have to be prepared for some surprises, things we never thought of or things we thought of but were not correct,\u201d he said in a recent briefing. \u201cThe heating, particularly during stormy times when the sun has a lot of flares and activity, that\u2019s where one really doesn\u2019t know what we\u2019re going to find.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Parker Solar Probe is equipped with four instruments. The FIELDS instrument will map out the sun\u2019s electric and magnetic fields, measuring waves and turbulence in the star\u2019s atmosphere to help scientists understand how magnetic field lines can explosively snap apart and re-align.<\/p>\n

The Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe, or WISPR, will photograph the large scale structure of the corona before the spacecraft flies into it, studying coronal mass ejections, jets and other phenomena.<\/p>\n

The Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation, or SWEAP, will use two instruments to characterize the particles making up the solar wind, measuring their velocity, density and temperature.<\/p>\n

Finally, the Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun, or ISOIS, relies on two instruments to measure particle energies, shedding light on their origin and how they were accelerated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe science is ground breaking, it\u2019s compelling, it\u2019s confused scientists and puzzled us for decades and decades and decades,\u201d Fox said. \u201cWe\u2019re now going to fly this mission.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STORY WRITTEN FOR CBS NEWS & USED WITH PERMISSION Artist\u2019s concept of Parker Solar Probe. Credit: JHUAPL NASA managers Thursday cleared the $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe for launch early Saturday on a daring mission to \u201ctouch the sun,\u201d repeatedly flying through its outer atmosphere to find out why the blazing corona is millions of degrees hotter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2057,1878,2891,1688,1408,1860,1861,25],"class_list":["post-13654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-complex-37b","tag-delta","tag-delta-380","tag-delta-4","tag-delta-4-heavy","tag-heliophysics","tag-jhuapl","tag-launch"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13654"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13654"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13654\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}