Jakarta –
Another year on December 24, rides Parker Solar Probe NASA’s will be so close to Sun so according to scientists it is as if touching it. The distance at that time was 6.1 million km from the surface of the Sun.
The probe will pass the Sun at an astonishing speed of 195 km per second. No man-made object can move so fast and so close to our star. “We’re basically on the verge of landing on a star,” said Parker project scientist Dr Nour Raouafi.
“This will be a monumental achievement for all of humanity. It is equivalent to landing on the Moon in 1969,” said a scientist at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory to BBC News quoted detikINET.
Parker’s speed comes from the enormous gravitational pull it experiences as it heads towards the Sun. The speed is similar to flying from New York to London in less than 30 seconds.
Parker Solar Probe is one of the most daring space missions. Launched by NASA in 2018, this probe aims to pass by the Sun repeatedly and get closer. The final maneuver in 2024 will take Parker only 4% of the Sun-Earth distance (149 million km).
The challenges Parker faces in doing this will be enormous. At perihelion, the spacecraft’s orbital point closest to the star, the temperature that will hit the spacecraft will likely reach 1,400 degrees Celsius. Parker’s strategy was to get in and out quickly from behind a thick heat shield.
Researchers hope the payoff will be breakthrough knowledge about some of the solar system’s key processes. The main thing is a clearer explanation of how the corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun, works.
2024 will indeed be the peak of the Parker Solar Probe mission in its efforts to get closer to the Sun and create a better understanding of the Sun.
Watch the video “Parker Solar Probe spacecraft survives solar storm”
(fyk/fyk)
2024-01-01 15:00:14
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