NASA is reportedly preparing for one of its ambitious space exploration in recent years. The US space agency is planning to send its first unmanned mission to the sun plausibly by next year. Reports are now saying that it is not just an ordinary space exploration but the mission aims to gather information to protect Earth from possible future solar storms.
NASA is an independent agency under the executive branch of the United States government. Its main task is to provide civilian space program in addition to aerospace and aeronautics research. Established in 1958, the US space agency first focused their studies on planet Earth until it expands its research to other matter beyond Earth.
For the past decade, NASA has been famous in leading space exploration such as the Apollo landing mission, the Skylab space station and then the Space Shuttle. Presently, it is also studying other planets like Saturn and Jupiter and a possible mission to Mars. Now, reports are saying that the US space agency is getting ready for an audacious mission.
According to USA TODAY, NASA is now preparing a plan of sending its first unmanned space mission heading to the sun next year. Dubbed as the Parker Solar Probe, the space mission is set to launch in the summer of 2018 and it will be the first time the US space agency will fly a mission into the sun's atmosphere.
NASA also revealed that the unmanned mission will travel at a speed of 430,000 miles per hour to the sun's atmosphere. The US space agency also says that they are starting to develop an advanced material that could tolerate scorching temperatures of 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. The mission intends to get an answer about how a star like the Sun works and collect data for a better understanding of space weather events.
But aside from that, the mission to the sun could give NASA some helpful information to protect Earth from devastating solar storms according to The Conversation UK. The US space agency aims to get the Parker Solar Probe to at least 6m km above the solar surface and operates a sensor to discover and examine the phenomena taking place in the sun.
NASA wants to study the magnetic fields around the sun that could be connected to the different change of temperature and weather condition. The US space agency believes that once magnetic fields break, a severe space weather like solar storms is likely to happen. With that, surrounding planets like Earth could feel the havoc of a blistering heat from the sun.
