[*Thanks to Robert Thomas / Itaal Shur for a great first couple of lines to Smooth (Video is 4 minutes)]
It was a remarkable year in space last year, getting off to a great start with Perseverance/Ingenuity in February and ending with James Webb in December. Both missions continue to astound, pushing the boundaries of science and technology and sending new knowledge to us Earthlings. Check out my last post from 2021 (From Perseverance & Ingenuity to James Webb: Bookends to a Remarkable Year).
[Graphics Credit: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2016/09/Artist_representation_of_the_JWST]
But it’s confession time—I completely missed posting about the Parker Solar Probe and its incredible trip through the Sun’s corona. Time to rectify that oversight.
NASA’s launch service partner, ULA (United Launch Alliance), launched the Parker Solar Probe (3-minute video) on August 12, 2018, aboard a Delta IV rocket. For the first time, NASA will try to sample the Sun’s corona and get within 4.3 million miles of the Sun’s surface. By comparison, the Earth is about 93 million miles from the Sun.
[Image Credit: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/R6B3mLDNuiAerSpArXjvKE-1024-80.jpg.webp, Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory]
The engineering and materials science needed to protect the probe had to address not just the heat of the Sun, but hypervelocity dust particles, hard radiation, intense magnetic fields, etc. Mission scientists expect to sample the Sun’s corona and measure the boundary known as the Alfvén critical surface, which marks the end of the solar atmosphere and the beginning of the solar wind. Earth is generally protected from the solar wind, but it has weathered the Moon’s surface and studies suggest it stripped the atmosphere from Mars.
But we enjoy its effects as the Northern Lights.
If you are interested in learning more about the Parker Solar Probe, I would suggest:
Wikipedia (that ubiquitous source)
One last topic for this post—speed! The mission scientists expect the probe to reach speeds of over 430,000 mph. Fast, you say? Sure—to the Moon and back in an hour and ten minutes. At its closest, to Mars in a little over 4 days. Of course, you’d need a way to slow down.
The point is, the Parker Solar Probe is the fastest man-made object in the Solar System at the moment. Its speed is fast enough to express in a small, but not trivial, percentage of the speed of light, .064% in fact. At that speed, and its close approach to the gravity of the Sun, the probe will appear to us to slow down time about .7 seconds in 1000 hours. Imagine, NASA has sent a probe that will travel fast enough to experience an effect theorized by Einstein over 100 years ago and which Science Fiction writers have been using ever since.
[Image Credit: https://nasa.tumblr.com/post/626435108717608960/bend-your-mind-with-special-relativity]
What an amazing accomplishment. Let me know what you think.
I know I’m looking forward to an exciting 2022.
Thanks for stopping by. Happy New Year.
[Disclaimer: Please accept my apologies for any ads that pop up before the linked videos. They do not reflect my position, nor do I endorse any of the products—it’s just a YouTube thing I can’t get around.]
Hi Man,How Are You Doing
I’m great. I hope you enjoyed the article. Thanks for stopping by.