Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Emerging Tech
  3. News

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe sets out to try and ‘touch’ the sun

Luke Dormehl
By
Parker Solar Probe Instruments: FIELDS

The Parker Solar Probe blasted off from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida early Sunday morning, aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket, on a remarkable mission. Its ultimate destination: the edge of the corona, the atmosphere of the sun, where it will make the first in-situ measurements there. The goal? To uncover crucial details about the origins of the solar winds, which go on to bombard Earth and pose a major challenge to our spacecraft and communications systems.

Recommended Videos

Oh, and to unravel a giant mystery about the sun’s temperature, too.

Related

“The corona is very hot, millions of degrees Centigrade, and we don’t know why,” Stuart Bale, a University of California, Berkeley professor of physics who was one of the four principal investigators responsible for developing the FIELDS suite of instruments on board the probe, told Digital Trends. “The sun itself is a relatively cool — 6,000-degrees Celsius — star. Somehow this cool star makes the corona very hot. This hot corona then escapes the sun’s gravity and becomes the ‘solar wind.’”

The launch was delayed by a day to Sunday morning following a few technical concerns on Saturday, detailed on Twitter by ULA president and CEO Tory Bruno:

See you tomorrow. Bird is good. Had to recycle a couple of times. One for a telemetry issue. Another for an automated trip on a regulator. Ran out of time in the window. We want this to be perfect.

— Tory Bruno (@torybruno) August 11, 2018

Sunday’s launch was flawless, however, a fiery arc of jet fire from the ULA rocket cutting up through the night sky at 3:31 am. “I’m grateful to our many partners who made today’s launch a success!” wrote NASA administrator Jim Bridenstein on Twitter.

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launches from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 3:31 am on August 12. Image used with permission by copyright holder

As you might imagine, a mission that essentially involves flying into the sun (or, at least, to its periphery) involves dealing with a fair amount of heat. While the Parker Solar Probe is equipped with a heat shield for protecting its various onboard sensors, it will nonetheless have to contend with temperatures almost hot enough to melt steel.

Bale has been working on the project since 2009 (“a long time,” he said), and everything since then has been building up to this point. Should all go according to plan, the instruments he helped develop will be used for measuring electric and magnetic fields in the corona and solar wind, before relaying this information back to Earth.

So spare a thought for the sleep-deprived folks at NASA HQ when you’re out enjoying your Sunday afternoon. And if, through some miracle, you happen to later spot a tiny solar probe traveling at 340,000 mph (note: unless you have Superman-level vision, this is extremely unlikely) make sure to wish it good luck on its journey.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Luke Dormehl
Luke Dormehl
Contributor
I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…
Parker Solar Probe detects a natural radio signal coming from Venus
When flying past Venus in July 2020, Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument, short for Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe, detected a bright rim around the edge of the planet that may be nightglow — light emitted by oxygen atoms high in the atmosphere that recombine into molecules in the nightside. The prominent dark feature in the center of the image is Aphrodite Terra, the largest highland region on the Venusian surface. Bright streaks in WISPR, such as the ones seen here, are typically caused by a combination of charged particles — called cosmic rays — sunlight reflected by grains of space dust, and particles of material expelled from the spacecraft’s structures after impact with those dust grains. The number of streaks varies along the orbit or when the spacecraft is traveling at different speeds, and scientists are still in discussion about the specific origins of the streaks here. The dark spot appearing on the lower portion of Venus is an artifact from the WISPR instrument.

During its third Venus flyby on July 11, 2020, Parker Solar Probe's WISPR imager captured this view of Venus' nightside from 7,693 miles away. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Laboratory/Guillermo Stenborg and Brendan Gallagher

A NASA spacecraft intended to study the sun has been doing some bonus science, revealing new information about Venus as it passes by the planet. It's been a long time since a spacecraft has taken a direct measurement of the Venusian atmosphere -- according to NASA the last time was almost 30 years ago when the Pioneer Venus Orbiter peered into the atmosphere in 1992 -- and the study has revealed some fascinating facts about our planetary neighbor.

Read more
Gorgeous image of Venus snapped by the Parker Solar Probe on its way past
When flying past Venus in July 2020, Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument, short for Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe, detected a bright rim around the edge of the planet that may be nightglow — light emitted by oxygen atoms high in the atmosphere that recombine into molecules in the nightside. The prominent dark feature in the center of the image is Aphrodite Terra, the largest highland region on the Venusian surface. Bright streaks in WISPR, such as the ones seen here, are typically caused by a combination of charged particles — called cosmic rays — sunlight reflected by grains of space dust, and particles of material expelled from the spacecraft’s structures after impact with those dust grains. The number of streaks varies along the orbit or when the spacecraft is traveling at different speeds, and scientists are still in discussion about the specific origins of the streaks here. The dark spot appearing on the lower portion of Venus is an artifact from the WISPR instrument.

When flying past Venus in July 2020, Parker Solar Probe’s WISPR instrument, short for Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe, detected a bright rim around the edge of the planet that may be nightglow — light emitted by oxygen atoms high in the atmosphere that recombine into molecules in the nightside. NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Laboratory/Guillermo Stenborg and Brendan Gallagher

NASA has shared this gorgeous image of Venus, captured by the Parker Solar Probe on a flyby of the planet in July last year. The probe's main mission is to explore the sun up close and learn about its corona, but it also regularly passes Venus as it uses the planet's gravity to adjust its orbit. The researchers staffing the mission don't let these flybys go to waste, and use the probe's instruments to learn about Venus as well on their way by.

Read more
NASA probe successfully touches Bennu asteroid for sample collection
This artist's rendering shows the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collecting a sample from the asteroid Bennu using a mechanical arm to touch the asteroid's surface.

Tour of Asteroid Bennu

NASA is celebrating tonight after its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft successfully touched the Bennu asteroid in a bid to collect rock and dust samples from its surface. It's the first time for the space agency to perform such a feat.

Read more