NASA’s solar probe will make history on Christmas Eve by zooming closer to the sun than ever before

The sun is getting a surprise Christmas visitor: NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which will get uncomfortably close to the star. The small probe is preparing for its closest approach to the sun this week, when it will endure temperatures of up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982.2 degrees Celsius).

the Parker Solar Probe It was launched in August 2018 on a mission to touch the Sun, getting closer to the star with each orbit. On December 24, the spacecraft will be 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) from the sun’s surface, making it the closest solar approach in history. From that distance, the mission has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of the Sun, braving the brutal radiation emitted by the star to collect data about the origin and evolution of the solar wind.

This close encounter has taken a long time. In 2021, the probe became The first mission to fly through the sun’s coronaOr the upper atmosphere of a star. The Parker Solar Probe traveled extensively through a coronal mass ejection (CME), an explosive burst of high-energy radiation from the Sun, in its historic flyby. In September 2022 the mission I repeated the maneuver The data was collected to help scientists understand how the sun’s plasma interacts with interplanetary dust around it.

As of last September, the Parker 21 probe had made 21 close approaches to the sun, coming within about 4.51 million miles (7.26 million kilometers) of the sun’s surface. In November, Parker Solar Probe conducted its mission The seventh and final trip to VenusUsing the planet’s gravity to catapult itself into a closer orbit around the sun. The flyby was the final step in a mission aimed at swinging the probe to its closest approach to our host star.

The Parker Solar Probe is the fastest man-made object in history, but during its closest approach, the spacecraft will approach the Sun at a record speed of 430,000 miles per hour, according to the British Daily Mail. NASA. The Parker Solar Probe needs this speed to overcome the Sun’s gravity. At this pace, the spacecraft could travel from Washington, D.C., to Philadelphia in one second.

The spacecraft also needs to survive the intense heat generated by the Sun. Its heat shield will reach temperatures of up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982.2 degrees Celsius), while keeping the spacecraft’s body at a moderate temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29.4 degrees Celsius). The Parker Solar Probe’s heat shield is 8 feet (2.4 meters) in diameter and 4.5 inches (about 115 mm) thick. The shield consists of a composite carbon foam sandwiched between two carbon plates, with a layer of white ceramic coating on the sun-facing plate to reflect as much of the star’s heat as possible.

As it makes its record close approach to the sun, the spacecraft will track the flow of energy across the star’s surface, study the heating of the solar corona, and investigate the causes of the acceleration of the solar wind, according to the American “space” website. NASA.

With this data, scientists hope to gain some answers regarding the Sun’s most pressing mysteries. One of the most confusing aspects of the Sun is that its corona, or upper atmosphere, is about 200 times hotter than its surface. Other solar physics dilemmas that Parker might address are the main driver of the solar wind and the source of high-energy solar particles. Data from the probe could also help scientists better predict space weather, which it can do Earth effect Through the beautiful aurora borealis and the destructive waves of the world’s electrical infrastructure.

The Christmas Eve flyby is the first of three at the same distance from the sun, taking full advantage of the spacecraft’s daring capabilities.