NASA would dare for the first time to visit a star and the agency will start it with the closest star on Earth, the Sun. The agency will send a probe for an extreme exploration next year.
NASA reveals its plan for a historic Parker Solar Probe mission to visit a star. The closest star to Earth, which is the Sun would be the first target of the agency. The probe will be sent on July 31 to August 19, 2018, for the first extreme exploration through the sun's atmosphere.
According to The Atlantic, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration just announced partial details for its planned mission to visit a star. The original plan is to send a robotic probe into the ranging atmosphere of the sun for an extreme exploration on the fierce heat and radiation.
NASA made a clear statement that it would rename the mission after the name of Eugene Parker. Parker is an American astrophysicist who is the first person to write the dynamics of solar wind in the year 1950. So, to credit Parker's works, the first mission to visit a star would be named Parker Probe Plus instead of Solar Probe Plus mission.
The mission will study the Sun's corona which is some percentage hotter than the Sun's core. Poetically, NASA describes the mission to visit a star as "to touch the sun" because it's close enough after the probe will travel 3.9 million miles.
NASA stated that its main goal for the mission is to track how energy and heat goes and move around the Sun's corona. Furthermore, the space agency is curious to explore what makes the solar wind accelerate along with the solar energetic particles.
When the first visit to a star is made possible next year, it will open doors for the answers which scientists have been searching for in the last 60 years. And even though the probe will have to face the 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit heat of the corona, NASA is willing to spend great amount and effort just to get the data they need for the study.
