The “Parker Solar Probe” solar probe has made its 14th close flyby of the sun, as part of its ongoing quest to uncover many secrets.
According to “Russia Today”, the NASA spacecraft reached its closest point to the surface of the sun, also known as the photosphere, at a distance of regarding 5.3 million miles (8.5 million km), defying intense radiation and intense heat, to collect data related to the star’s outer atmosphere, called “halo” or “corona”.
Scientists estimated the exact time for the closest approach to the sun, or perihelion, at regarding 13:16 GMT, as the spacecraft travels at an amazing speed of regarding “586.829 km / h.” This speed is 200 times faster than a bullet fired from a gun.
During the next flyby, the spacecraft will advance toward the sun and eventually pass near it, 3.8 million miles (6,115,500 kilometers) from the surface. This is seven times closer than any previous vehicle to the sun, and regarding ten times closer to the sun than the planet Mercury, and the Parker Solar Probe will experience temperatures of up to 2500 degrees Fahrenheit (1400 degrees Celsius).
To withstand these harsh conditions, the spacecraft is equipped with a carbon composite shield that keeps its science payload at room temperature.
One of the primary goals of the Parker Solar Probe is to study the corona, the outermost layer of the sun’s atmosphere, and gather data that can help solve one of the sun’s most long-standing mysteries. Why is the sun’s atmosphere hotter than its surface?
Theories of stellar physics indicate that pressure increases deep within the star’s plasma, and the star becomes hotter. But Halo challenges this theory. Although fragile and diffuse, the plasma in this layer is much hotter than the plasma at the surface of the Sun, the photosphere that lies beneath the corona.
