Space.com reported, the joint American-European Solar Orbiter spacecraft "had an appointment with Venus" yesterday morning, the first "in a series of planetary flybys" to hone the orbit of a probe on its journey to the sun.
According to the said Space.com report, Solar Orbiter reached its nearest approach to Venus at 7:39 am EST, "when the spacecraft was roughly 7,500 kilometers" from the cloud tops of the planet.
In a collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency or ESA, the probe was inaugurated in February this year, bound to spend seven years examining the sun.
However, to reach as close to the stars as scientists would desire, there is a need for the spacecraft to make some loops, beginning with Venus's flyby yesterday.
More so, if one is flying a spacecraft past a planet, at any rate, you may try to get a little data out of this adventure.
'Solar Orbiter'
According to project scientist for the mission, Daniel Muller, from the ESA, Solar Orbiter is certainly a mission not designed particularly "to take Venus observations."
He said this during a news briefing earlier this month during the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting, held virtually.
Muller added they are always searching for "bonus opportunities to do science, so yes," they will still be conducting observations when they reach Venus.
Nonetheless, the main goal of studying the sun, the spacecraft, does limit what function it can do flying past Venus. A key limitation, the said report specified, comes from the sun-wary design of the spacecraft.
The Need to Always Point the Heat Shield Toward the Sun
Muller explained, they always have to point their heat shield toward the sun, "that cannot be changed." The telescopes, he elaborated, are all looking through the heat shield in the direction of the solar system.
Therefore, the expert added, there are no images of Venus from this spacecraft. However, while scientists are specifically enthusiastic for the detailed outlooks of the poles of the sun that Solar Orbiter will absolutely provide, the spacecraft carries, too, a collection of instruments that concentrate on the immediate environment. For these, the said report indicated, the direction is not a problem.
During yesterday's flyby, scientists collected data through the use of the spacecraft's magnetometer, "radio and plasma waves instrument and some of the sensors on the energetic particle detector."
Given such instruments and the distance of the Solar Orbiter from Venus, the observations will have a limited effect on science.
According to physicist Tim Horbury, from the Imperial College London, and one of the principal investigators of the instruments of the Solar Orbiter, "At those kinds of distances," looking at the manner Venus is interacting with the solar wind, following past it "is going to be the key we are looking at."
No 'Magnetic Field'
Unlike Earth, Venus has no magnetic field; thus, the solar wind is interacting directly with the planet, rather than with that specific field.
Horbury explained, it is quite "a different interaction," explained Horbury. And since the maneuver today marks the first swing of Solar Orbiter past Venus, the team was unsure what to anticipate scientifically from the flyby.
The mission team was communicating with the spacecraft during the flyby. Although it will be a couple of days before scientists can explore further the data, the instruments retrieve during the operation, the ESA specified.
Muller explained, they will really be looking out for "new and interesting things." He added, they cannot really specify yet, "what they will be."
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Check out more news and information on Venus in Science Times.
