A NASA spacecraft came closer to the Sun than any spacecraft in history on Christmas Eve — and it spun at an astonishing speed that also made it the fastest thing ever built by humans.
Just before 7 a.m. on Dec. 24, Parker Solar Probe passed within just 3.8 million miles of the sun’s surface — seven times closer to the burning ball of gas than any other mission, According to the New York Times.
As it escapes the corona — or the sun’s outer atmosphere — it hurtles through space at a record-breaking 430,000 miles per hour, the outlet said.
This broke the probe’s own record for speed, making it the fastest thing ever assembled by human hands.
The close encounter is the culmination of a six-year mission that has sent the Parker probe close to the Sun during nearly two dozen prior flybys that have revealed new information about the celestial body.
It has also observed comets, taken photographs and added to our knowledge of nearby planet Venus.
“This is a voyage of discovery,” Nikki Fox, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, told the Times.
“We are really going into the unknown. Nothing has passed through a star’s atmosphere, and no other mission will last long.
The outlet said the probe’s heat shield — which protects the machinery from temperatures of about 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit — also fared better than scientists expected as it got closer to a previously unknown stellar region.
“We feel good that the mission is performing really well, even better than we designed it to be,” Noor Rawfi, project scientist at the Applied Physics Laboratory, told The Times.
“But it still remains a very risky mission. Anything can happen at any time.”
The probe is searching for information about the solar wind emanating from the Sun, which is currently at its solar maximum, or most active.
The mission has already discovered fascinating new secrets about the life-giving star, a 4.5 billion-year-old ball of hydrogen and helium that has passed nearly half of its lifespan.
This includes the discovery of the magnetic switchbacks that drive the solar wind and the discovery of a dust-free region near the star, which was predicted nearly a century ago.
The NASA team — which launched the investigation with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory — is hoping the probe will now get a front-row seat to some explosive holiday fireworks.
“If the sun gives us one of these giant explosions, like a coronal mass ejection, when Parker Solar Probe gets very close to the sun, that would be spectacular,” Rawfi said.
The spacecraft is expected to remain in darkness until Dec. 27 before sending another message to Earth confirming it is still functioning, the Times said.
It will then send back information about its dive into Corona over the next few months.
Although it will make two more close flybys next year, the Parker probe will never get as close as it does now.
The probe is named after Eugene Parker, the solar physicist who predicted the existence of the solar wind in the 1950s.
The Times said he watched the probe launch in 2018 – but died four years later at the age of 94.
(TagstoTranslate)US News(T)Astronomy(T)NASA(T)Space Program(T)Sun
