12.06.2017 change 12.06.2017

NASA is preparing a mission to study the Sun

US Space Agency NASA is preparing to launch a space probe to study the Sun in 2018. The mission has been named Parker Solar Probe - after Eugene N. Parker, the astrophysicist who predicted the supersonic solar wind.

The project was previously named Solar Probe Plus. NASA changed its name last Wednesday to honour Eugene Parker, American astrophysicist who published an article that described complex interactions between speeding charged particles and buffeted magnetic fields in 1958. He described the phenomenon now known as solar wind, a continuous stream of charged particles (plasma) that flow from the Sun and spread throughout the Solar System. Parker\'s work was the basis for scientists to understand how the Sun and other stars affect their planets.

"This is the first time NASA has named a spacecraft for a living individual" - said Thomas Zurbuchen from NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Parker Solar Probe will launch during a 20-day window that opens July 31, 2018. The probe will investigate the solar corona up close. It will reach a distance of 8.5 solar radius, or 5.9 million kilometres from the visible surface of our day star (the photosphere). No space probe has flown so close to the Sun, it is seven times closer than previous studies of the Sun with space probes.

In order to reach the planned area, the probe will first make seven passes near Venus in order to obtain a gravitational assist. Later, when it passes near the Sun, it is expected to reach the speed of up to 200 km/s, which will make it the fastest moving space probe. Currently, this record belongs to another solar mission: Helios 2, 1976.

Researchers hopethat Parker Solar Probe will allow to study the flow of energy and better understand how the solar corona warms up, and how it accelerates the solar wind. They will also study the structure and dynamics of plasma and magnetic fields as sources of solar wind and the mechanisms that accelerate and transport energy particles. (PAP)

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