NASA makes history with closest ever approach to the Sun surviving temperatures of 1,800F
NASA has made history with the closest approach to the sun ever made.
A probe was able to withstand temperatures of 1,800 degrees fahrenheit as it flew by the sun to capture data.
The Parker Solar Probe was first launched in 2018 and is currently on its 22nd orbit, which passed by its closest point to the sun just before midnight (EST) on Thursday (December 27).
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The mission was a success for NASA as the space agency revealed that the probe is ‘safe’ and operating as normal.
It was not known whether the probe would survive the heat as it passed 3.8 million miles from the surface of the sun.
NASA said: “This close-up study of the sun allows Parker Solar Probe to take measurements that help scientists better understand how material in this region gets heated to millions of degrees, trace the origin of the solar wind (a continuous flow of material escaping the Sun), and discover how energetic particles are accelerated to near light speed.”
Previously speaking to BBC News, Dr Nicola Fox, who is the head of science at NASA, said: “For centuries, people have studied the sun, but you don’t experience the atmosphere of a place until you actually go [and] visit it.
“And so we can't really experience the atmosphere of our star unless we fly through it.”
She added: “I will worry about the spacecraft. But we really have designed it to withstand all of these brutal, brutal conditions. It's a tough, tough little spacecraft.”
Dr Fox went on to explain just how close the probe got to the solar surface, adding: “We are 93 million miles away from the sun, so if I put the sun and the Earth one metre apart, Parker Solar Probe is 4cm from the sun - so that's close.”
There is a lot to be discovered about the sun from the probe’s trip, as Dr Jenifer Millard, who is an astronomer at Fifth Star Labs in Wales, explained: “The corona is really, really hot, and we have no idea why.
“The surface of the Sun is about 6,000C (10,832 degrees fahrenheit) or so, but the corona, this tenuous outer atmosphere that you can see during solar eclipses, reaches millions of degrees - and that is further away from the Sun. So how is that atmosphere getting hotter?”
She added: “Understanding the Sun, its activity, space weather, the solar wind, is so important to our everyday lives on Earth.”