It is one of the fastest objects ever built by humanity. Since 2018, the Parker Solar Probe probe is rushing through the inner solar system, with one goal: approaching always closer to the sun. Last December, she broke a new record: It increased to 6.1 million kilometers from its surface (5 % of the Earth-Sun distance), Parker has completely entered the solar crown. On a cosmic scale, the word “touched” is therefore not overused this distance is ridiculously close to our star.
Four days ago, the YouTube channel Nasa Goddard published A video explaining this featthat you can view below, as well as the mind-blowing images that Parker has captured. Be careful, it is the first time that you will see our star in this way; They will perfectly complete the images captured by Solar Orbiter last year.
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A dive into the solar crown
At this distance, Parker evolves directly inside the solar crown, this burning exterior envelope, much warmer than the surface of the star itself. It is a historical first: never an object manufactured by man had not entered such an extreme environmentwhere temperatures exceed one million degrees. The probe is of course solidly equipped to survive such a furnace, in particular by a thermal shield composed of ultra-reflective composite carbon.
Besides its design, Parker needs another protection to hold on. Its speed: it moves at more than 692,000 km/h, 25 times faster than the international space station (ISS). By spinning at such a speed, its exposure time in the warmest areas of the crown is limited, which reduces the risks of overheating and degradation of instruments.
By also briefly inserting into this turbulent region, Parker can thus Collect data without suffering from damage. It measures the properties of the solar wind, the magnetic field and the energetic particles emitted by the sun. Essential information to better anticipate solar eruptions, capable of damaging our satellites, our electrical infrastructure, or threatening the inhabited missions beyond the Earth’s magnetosphere.
The Parker mission hopes to overcome a very persistent enigma of astrophysics: why the solar crown, much more distant from the heart of the star, is however Several hundred times warmer than its visible surface ?
See the sun like never before
During his incursion seven months ago, Parker also brought back the closest images ever taken from the solar environment. The instrument behind these observations, called Wispr (for Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe), don’t observe the sun opposite. Ithe capture, indirectly, what escapes : material jets, plasma waves, magnetic twists.
As you can see in the video (black and white passages), you can follow the material in motion, the solar wind get up and the shock waves form on the surface. Surrealist visions, unpublished, which could be almost qualified as ” interior catches » So much he was near the sun.
Parker’s mission is far from over, since by 2026, it will still have to perform Six overflights, one of which is only 6.2 sunscreen distance rays (less than 7 million kilometers). The probe will literally sink into the external layers of the sun, The home home of our star. The opportunity for NASA to collect an essential database manna, in order to predict impetuous behavior of the one who has always enlightened us!
- The Parker probe approached at a record distance from the sun, penetrating its hottest external layer.
- It survived extreme conditions thanks to a thermal shield and an extraordinary speed.
- Its unpublished images and measurements make it possible to study the mechanisms of the solar wind and magnetic phenomena with unprecedented precision.
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