While Santa begins approaching homes all over the world Christmas Eve; NASA will be making history as its solar probe gets to its closest point near the Sun ever in history.
This will allow scientists to understand more about the Sun and how it effects Earth.
For all that we know about space and time; it’s very little compared to the size of the universe. However, Christmas Eve, NASA will get more answers about what keeps our solar system together by studying the Sun - up close.
“This is really cool for us as a scientific community,” said Ashley Greeley, a Helio physicist for NASA and she will be working on the project.
“Its a lot of firsts, the closest satellite to the Sun, the fastest satellite man-made object ever, engineering feats to protect the technology from the heat of the sun it’s just a really exciting time,” adds Greeley.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will come within 3.8 million miles of the Sun’s surface.
“I know that doesn’t sound that close but the Earth and the Sun are 93 million miles apart from each other so if you place the Sun and the earth at opposite ends of a football field the satellite will be at the four-yard line,” said Greeley.
The entire time Parker Solar Probe will be traveling at 430,000 mph. It will be the fastest moving human made object.
But what stops the probe from melting?
LINK https://science.nasa.gov/mission/parker-solar-probe/
The probe has a heat shield that will endure temperatures over a million degrees Fahrenheit.
HARRIS: My fear is that it would essentially melt but that’s not the case?
GREELEY: There are two components of it, the Sun is very hot but has really low density in the region.
“We have some pretty intense heat shielding thanks to our engineers made up of carbon on one side of the heat shield the temperatures are 2500 degrees Fahrenheit.” adds Greeley.
The other side of the panel it’s equivalent to room temperature.
Once the study is complete scientists will have a better understanding of our closest star, the Sun, the particles that come from it and how they interact with our magnetic fields that make things like the auroras.
Parker will be traveling at an astounding 430,000 mph, making it the fastest-moving human-made object in history. That’s fast enough to get from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., in one second.