NASA Spacecraft Makes 12th Close Flyby Today: A Mission Where Material from Sun Leaves the Surface, Becomes Solar Wind

The sung-grazing spacecraft of NASA will make its 12th close flyby of the star today, making the mission's halfway point.

A Space.com report specified that during this particular flyby, the Parker Solar Probe, which is specially designed to take extreme solar radiation and heat, will get as close as 8.5 million kilometers to the solar surface, which is roughly as near as it drew during last close approach in late February.

@twitter|https://twitter.com/spaceanswers/status/1531962409816051712?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw@

Flying 14 times closer than Mercury's orbit, the solar system's planet nearest the sun, Parker, will reach a top speed of 586,860 kph.

That's approximately 21 times faster than the International Space Station's speed as it circles Earth. According to a spokesperson at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory overseeing the mission, the exact time of the closest approach, called perihelion, will happen at 6:50 pm EDT.

Parker Solar Probe

Parker is not set to break its speed record again this time, as it has several times in its entire mission. However, what's more, valuable than superlatives, is how so many close passes provide information about the complex behavior of the sun, which results in phenomena like superheating the million-degree corona that's much hotter than the plasma on the surface of the sun.

The mission's project scientist Nour Raouafi, from JHUAPL, said in a statement that the Parker Solar Probe mission is not only reshaping the landscape of solar and heliophysics research "before our eyes," although it is enticing those in the field to pursue challenging ideas that, just a few years back.

The mission has, for instance, crossed the Alfven critical surface many times. That's where solar material leaves the surface and becomes the solar wind.

This critical radiation vector impacts space weather all over the solar system. Scientists now know that the boundary is wrinkled instead of a smooth curve.

Other Parker Discoveries

According to the principal investigator for Parker's Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons or SWEAP instrument, Justin Kasper, from BWX Technologies, sampling the solar wind under the Alfven critical boundary is crucial to understanding the solar wind's heating and acceleration.

Some of their other discoveries of Parker, which are described in a separate Space.com report, include detecting a dust-free site around the Sun where the grains sublime because of extreme heat, determining the origin of magnetic field "switchbacks" or field flips at magnetic funnels on the solar surface, as well as better understanding the solar energetic particles' nature.

The mission is expected to expose better the nature of space weather, which can impact the planet by shorting out satellites, power lines, or other infrastructure during the strongest storms.

More typically, the events are harmless and produce colorful displays high up in the atmosphere, also known as auroras.

Launched in August 2018, the Parker Solar Probe includes four instrument suites. It does periodic planetary flybys, too, of Venus to pick up speed or adjust course, sometimes seizing dazzling images along the way. The subsequent flyby will take place in August next year.

Lastly, the Parker Solar Probe is expected to make 24 close passes of the sun during its mission of seven years, scheduled to wrap up in the middle of 2055.

Related information about the Parker Solar Probe is shown on NASA's YouTube video below:

Check out more news and information on the Sun in Science Times.