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Aug 12, 2018 · On a mission to “touch the Sun,” NASA's Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the corona – the Sun’s upper atmosphere – in 2021. With every orbit, the probe faces brutal heat and radiation to provide humanity with unprecedented observations of the only star we can study up close.
- United States of America (USA)
- Parker Solar Probe (Solar Probe Plus)
- Solar Orbit
- 1,510 pounds (685 kilograms) at launch
Dec 14, 2021 · In the mid-1990s, the NASA-European Space Agency mission Ulysses flew over the Sun’s poles and discovered a handful of bizarre S-shaped kinks in the solar wind’s magnetic field lines, which detoured charged particles on a zig-zag path as they escaped the Sun. For decades, scientists thought these occasional switchbacks were oddities confined to the Sun’s polar regions.
Dec 15, 2021 · On future flybys, Parker is expected to creep even closer to the sun, coming as low as 8.86 solar radii (3.83 million miles or 6.16 million km) from the sun's photosphere, its visible surface.
- 5 min
- Elizabeth Howell
The US space agency's Parker Solar Probe is one of the most audacious missions ever conceived. Launched in 2018, it has the goal of making repeated, and ever closer, passes of the Sun.
Jan 9, 2024 · (The sun is a ball of gas, so it doesn't really have a surface.) To do so, the spacecraft will brave temperatures of around 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit (1,400 degrees Celsius).
Dec 30, 2023 · It promises to be a remarkable moment in the history of space exploration. A year from now, on 24 December, Nasa's Parker Solar Probe will race past the Sun at the astonishing speed of 195 km/s ...
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Dec 14, 2021 · For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun’s upper atmosphere – the corona – and sampled particles and magnetic fields there. The new milestone marks one major step for Parker Solar Probe and one giant leap for solar science. Just as […]
