NASA’s Solar Probe Set to Soar Closer to the Sun Than Ever Before!

Overview

• NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is anticipated to approach the solar surface extremely closely on December 24.

• The spacecraft aims to get within 3.86 million miles of the sun, farther than any other human-crafted object in history.

• This mission was initiated to examine the sun’s outer atmosphere and assist scientists in understanding how solar tempests escape into space.

NASA is gearing up to “sample” the sun on Christmas Eve.

The agency’s Parker Solar Probe is only days away from achieving its nearest approach to the sun on Tuesday, gliding closer to our star than any other man-made object throughout history.

The spacecraft, roughly the size of a compact automobile, is programmed to dive within 3.86 million miles of the solar surface at 6:40 a.m. ET on Tuesday. It will traverse at approximately 430,000 mph, as noted by NASA.

“Picture it as traveling 96% of the way there to the sun’s surface,” stated Kelly Korreck, a program scientist from NASA’s heliophysics division.

During the maneuver, mission controllers will be unable to communicate with the probe, thus NASA will need to wait around three days to receive a signal indicating that the spacecraft has survived its close encounter with the sun.

Post that, the initial images from the brief encounter will likely be transmitted back to Earth at some point in January, according to the agency.

As the Parker Solar Probe nears the sun, it is probable that it will navigate through solar plasma plumes and may even venture into the sun’s active regions, said Korreck.

The mission was established to investigate the sun’s outer atmosphere, known as the corona, which is extremely hot. Scientists are eager to closely observe the corona because researchers have long been mystified as to why this outer layer is several hundred times hotter than the sun’s surface.

Studying the corona will also aid researchers in understanding how storms that develop on the sun’s surface burst into space. The probe will, for instance, be equipped to detect jets of the highest-energy solar particles as they are expelled from the sun, racing into the cosmos at supersonic speeds.

“This is the origin of space weather,” Korreck remarked. “We’ve monitored space weather from a distance, but now Parker is experiencing it firsthand. Now we’ll gain a clearer understanding of how space weather develops, and when we observe storms on the sun through our telescopes, we’ll be able to explain what that implies for us here on Earth.”

During significant space weather events, the sun can emit massive solar flares and streams of charged particles, known as solar wind, directed at Earth. When these eruptions interact with Earth’s magnetic field, they can harm satellites and disrupt power grids—while also intensifying the northern lights.

Korreck expressed that the Parker Solar Probe mission will enhance researchers’ ability to anticipate space weather and its potential impacts, akin to the efforts meteorologists and atmospheric scientists undertake for weather concerns on Earth.

Launched into space in 2018, the Parker probe has orbited the sun on more than 20 occasions since. The flyby on Christmas Eve will mark the first of three final close passes planned for the mission. The spacecraft is named after Eugene Parker, a trailblazing astrophysicist from the University of Chicago who first proposed the concept of solar wind. Parker passed away in 2022 at the age of 94.

Last month, the spacecraft made a close pass by Venus in a maneuver aimed at using a slingshot effect to bring the probe near the sun. This upcoming close approach has been timed to coincide with the most active phase of the sun’s 11-year activity cycle. This period, usually defined by a surge of solar storms and elevated magnetic activity, is referred to as the solar maximum.

Scientists like Korreck are hopeful that the Parker Solar Probe will have a primary opportunity if any storms are stirring on the sun’s surface come Christmas Eve.

This article was initially published on NBCNews.com