A NASA spacecraft is getting ready for a record-setting “closest-ever flight” to the Sun on Christmas Eve.
The Parker Solar Probe launched back in 2018 to examine our local star – and will give scientists a very special Christmas gift this year.
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It’s set to fly just 3.8 million miles from the surface of the Sun.
That might sound like a lot, but it’s a stone’s throw given that the Sun is 91.4 million miles from Earth.
Nasa’s probe is due to hit its closest approach to the Sun on Tuesday, December 24 at 11.53am in London or 6.53am in New York.
Sadly we won’t hear back from the probe immediately as it’ll be out of communications range.
But Nasa says we should get data back from the probe “in the coming weeks”.
The probe was operating normally when Nasa received its most recent transmission on December 20.
But we should hear a “beacon tone” on Friday, December 27 that confirms whether the probe survived its trip.
“This is one example of NASA’s bold missions, doing something that no one else has ever done before to answer longstanding questions about our universe,” said Arik Posner, a scientist on the Parker Solar Probe program at Nasa.
“We can’t wait to receive that first status update from the spacecraft and start receiving the science data in the coming weeks.”
Nasa is tracking the beacon transmissions through its Deep Space network complex in Canberra, Australia.
Over the next few weeks, the probe will be able to send its data across tens of millions of miles of space.
It will reach seven times closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft to date.
The probe will reach a staggering 430,000mph during the trip – and brave toasty 1,370C (2,500F) temperatures.
“No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory,” said Nick Pinkine, the operations manager for the Parker Solar Probe mission.
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“We’re excited to hear back from the spacecraft when it swings back around the Sun.”
Nasa expects the probe to circle the Sun until late next year.
It should return highly valuable scientific date that may help astronomers to solve some of our star’s most puzzling mysteries.
For instance, scientists still don’t exactly know why the corona – the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere – is so much hotter than its surface.
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The Sun – all the facts you need to know
What is it, why does it exist, and why is it so ruddy hot all the time?
- The Sun is a huge star that lives at the centre of our solar system
- It’s a nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, and provides most of the energy for life on Earth
- It measures a staggering 865,000 miles across – making it 109 times bigger than Earth
- But its weight is 330,000 times that of Earth, and accounts for almost all of the mass in the Solar System
- The Sun is mostly made up of hydrogen (73%), helium (25%) and then a number of other elements like oyxgen, carbon and iron
- Its surface temperature is around 5,505C
- Scientists describe the Sun as being “middle-aged”
- The Sun formed 4.6billion years ago, and tt’s been in its current state for around four billion years
- It’s expected that it will remain stable for another five billion years
- It doesn’t have enough mass to explode as a supernova
- Instead, we expect it to turn a hulking red giant
- During this phase, it will be so big that it will engulf Mercury, Venus and Earth
- Eventually it will turn into an incredibly hot white dwarf, and will stay that way for trillions of years
Picture Credit: Nasa
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And they’re also hoping to better understand the mechanisms behind solar wind – the stream of charged particles released from the corona.
The probe launched way back on August 12, 2018, and has a planned mission duration of seven years – bringing it to around September 2025.
It claimed the record as the closest artificial object to the Sun in October 2018, beating the Helios 2 spacecraft’s previous record of 26.55 million miles set in April 1976.
But the closest-ever approach is due to take place on December 24 this year.
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The probe is packed with equipment including sensors to monitor particles, magnetic fields, and a wide-field camera for snapping coronal mass ejections from the Sun.
Nasa’s probe is kept safe by the Thermal Protection System, an 8-foot heat shield that weighs around 160lbs.
“During closes approach the Sun-facing side of the TPS will reach temperatures of about 2,500F (1,370C),” Nasa explained.
“While the spacecraft and majority of the instruments will only experience temperatures around 85F (29C).”
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