Anticipation Builds as Spacecraft Sends Signals After Groundbreaking Solar Encounter

Icarus is often recognized in Greek mythology as the figure who soared too near to the sun. However, it is NASA’s Parker Solar Probe today that has transformed this bold voyage into reality.

On Christmas Eve, the vehicle-sized probe approached within 3.8 million miles of the solar surface — marking a historic closest encounter for humanity.

For context, NASA’s probe was approximately 10 times closer to our star than the orbit of Mercury, the nearest planet to the sun.

As it traversed around the sun, Parker also established a record for the fastest synthetic object, attaining a remarkable speed of 430,000 mph — which is sufficient to journey from New York to Tokyo in less than a minute.

To achieve such proximity, the Parker Solar Probe had to withstand the sun’s extreme temperatures and radiation like no prior spacecraft. Scientists will not be aware of Parker’s fate or condition until Friday, when it is anticipated to send its first signal back to Earth following its flyby.

“It is breaking all of these records and it’s a total ‘Yay! We did it!’ moment,” commented Nicola Fox, the associate administrator for NASA Science Mission Directorate, in a video on December 24.

Parker was launched in 2018 as a part of a groundbreaking mission to investigate the sun. The objective is to enhance our understanding of age-old enigmas, such as why the sun’s corona is hotter than its surface and the origins of the solar wind. Researchers also aspire that the mission will aid in forecasting solar storms, which can induce breathtaking, widespread auroras but also pose risks to power grids and radio communications.

For the last six years, Parker has been progressively approaching the sun. In 2021, it made history as the inaugural spacecraft to enter the sun’s upper atmosphere, commonly known as the corona.

NASA indicated that Parker will commence transmitting data acquired during its sun flybys by the end of January.

“Until recently, we simply didn’t have the necessary technology. In 2018, that shifted with the launch of the Parker Solar Probe,” Nour Rawafi, the project scientist for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe initiative at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), elaborated on TED Radio Hour earlier this month.

He further stated, “It has transformed our comprehension of the sun.”

Parker was outfitted with a specialized heat shield that reflects light, absorbs heat, and is cooled by a system of water-filled pipes, as per Rawafi.

This configuration assists in maintaining the probe’s interior at near room temperature, even while it is within the sun’s outer atmosphere, where temperatures can range from 1,600 to 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit.

The mission bears the name of Eugene Parker, the first to forecast the existence of the solar wind in the 1950s. It is the sole NASA mission named in honor of a living individual. In 2018, Parker was present to witness the rocket launch that propelled the probe into space. He passed away in 2022 at the age of 94.

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