NASA launched the Advanced Formation Explorer, or ACE satellite to study energetic particles traveling through space on August 25, 1997, blasting off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on a Delta 2 rocket and spending the next three and a half months on its way to its orbital center near the L1 Lagrange point. , which is the point of gravitational equilibrium between the Earth and the Sun.
According to the “space” website, the spacecraft monitors the stream of accelerating particles coming from the sun known as the solar wind.
The ACE provides 24/7 continuous coverage of the solar wind, letting scientists know when to expect geomagnetic storms that might disrupt communications satellites and Earth’s power grids.
While NASA’s new Parker probe was able to “touch” the sun, making it the first human-made object to do such work, the space agency described the achievement as “one major step” for its probe and “a giant leap for solar science.”“.
The Parker Solar Probe passed in and out of the sun’s upper atmosphere, called the corona, several times during a flight in April, with NASA needing the intervening months to receive and confirm the data. Digitartlends.
