NASA launches Parker Solar Probe
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, Mankind’s first mission to touch the Sun, has been launched on a
seven year long journey to unlock the mysteries of our star’s fiery outer
atmosphere and its effects on Space weather. Liftoff took place from space
Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the US on August 12,
2018. The space craft complete around 18 month’s journey. Delta IV Heavy rocket
of United Launch Alliance carried the spacecraft parker solar probe.
Symbolic image: google.com
The spacecraft will travel directly into the Sun’s
atmosphere, about four million miles from its surface and more than seven times
closer than any spacecraft has come before, thanks to its innovative Thermal
Projection System.
The $1.5 billion mission will perform the closest-ever
observation of a star when it travels through the Sun’s outer atmosphere,
called the corona.
It will make 24 passes through the corona during its seven
year mission. The mission will rely on measurements and imagine to revolutionise
our understanding of the corona and how processes there ultimately affect near
Earth Space.
The Parker Solar Probe carries a lineup of instruments to
study the Sun both remotely and in situ, or directly. Together, the data from
these instruments should help scientists answer three foundational questions
about our star.
Parker Solar Probe will explore the corona, a region of the
sun only seen from Earth when the Moon blacks out the Sun’s bright face during
total solar eclipses. The corona holds the answers to many of scientists’ outstanding
questions about the Sun’s activity and processes.
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