At 6:40 P.M. EDT today, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) will be sending one if its probes to survey the giant ball of fire in the center of the solar system.
To this day, full knowledge of the Sun's properties has not been achieved. Due to the radiation and the heat that it emits, studying the massive sphere of hot plasma has proven to be very challenging.
NASA aims to shed some light on some of the questions concerning the Sun by sending the Parker Solar Probe to plummet towards the star at 213,200 miles per hour. This will be the second encounter of the probe with the Sun.
The Parker Solar Probe has 24 trips to the sun to accomplish until 2024. The said probe is a small family car-sized unmanned spacecraft and was first launched in 2018
On this mission, the Parker probe will be exposed to extreme radiation about 500 times more intense than that on Earth and to extreme heat reaching to about 1,300 degrees Celsius. The estimated speed of 213,200 mph is equivalent to flying around the Earth for 100 times all in one hour.
The probe's first encounter with the Sun was last year. It is planned to travel towards the massive star until 2024 when it will be only 3.8 million miles away from the Sun's surface.
NASA built the spacecraft to endure the extreme conditions and exposure to the various elements that it will be going through while maintaining an internal temperature of 29 Degrees Celsius. The probe is tasked to take vital measurements of the aura of plasma surrounding the Sun, known as the corona.
The space probe has a carbon-composite shell that is 4.5 inches thick. The carbon-composite material is said to be capable of withstanding the sun's pronounced radiation and temperature even if it reaches 2000 degrees Celsius.
Scientists are hoping to find out why the corona is hotter than the sun's surface and how it produces violent plumes or solar flares. The probe should be able to sample the solar corona and the young solar wind during this mission.
The milestones that NASA has with the probe include tracing the flow of energy that heats the corona and accelerates solar wind, determining the structure and dynamics of the magnetic fields where the solar winds originate, and lastly, determining what causes the acceleration and transport of energetic particles.
