NASA’s solar spacecraft keeps moving faster and faster and faster

Over the past two years, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has consistently broken its own speed records. Next year, she will continue to break more records.

The agency’s well-protected spacecraft is gradually approaching the Sun and, during each pass, gaining greater speed. In 2018, shortly after its launch, the probe became the planet The fastest thing made by man It was never built at all, and by 2024 it will reach a staggering speed of 430,000 miles per hour.

At this speed, one can travel from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. in 20 seconds.

spacecraft recently It reached 394,736 mph. “It’s very fast,” Nour Rawafi, an astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the mission’s project scientist, told Mashable.

The spacecraft, equipped with a thick heat shield, was passing through the sun’s outer atmosphere, also known as the corona. It is the first mission to reach the corona, and the unprecedented data collected will help scientists predict how explosions from the Sun’s surface will affect Earth, and answer research dilemmas about the solar wind – the stream of particles and radiation constantly emitted from the Sun.

“It’s like opening a new book that we haven’t read before,” Al-Rawafi said.

How is the solar probe moving so fast?

Parker’s exceptionally increased speed is an inevitable part of its orbit around the Sun, a ball of hot gas 333,000 times larger Like our dense planet. From another perspective, 1.3 million terrestrial planets could fit inside the Sun. More importantly, when you swing close to a massive, gravitational object, you gain significant speed.

The spacecraft is now on its 17th orbit around the sun, allowing the vehicle to boost its speed by more than 240,000 miles per hour since 2018. In space, there is nothing to stop this movement. “Once it’s gone, it’s gone,” Al-Rawafi said. (The probe strategically passes close to Venus to get “gravitational aids” that push it closer to the Sun; flybys of Venus minimally slow the craft, but eventually increase its speed as it approaches the massive star.)

At such a rapid pace, the spacecraft begins a new orbit every three months, allowing its instruments to gather a wealth of information about the solar environment. Al-Rawafi said in amazement: “Every three months we have a new amount of new data.” “It will take years and years to study.”

How will the probe reveal the secrets of solar energy?

Space weather researchers have some important questions. They want to know why the solar wind accelerates after it leaves the sun, reaching 2 million miles per hour. They want to understand why the corona appears (and which… Up to 2 million degrees Fahrenheit) is much hotter than the surface of the Sun (10,000 degrees Fahrenheit). They want to understand how extreme space weather, caused by different types of solar flares, could eventually affect Earth.

A particularly threatening solar eruption is called a coronal mass ejection, or CME. These occur when the Sun ejects a mass of super-hot gas (plasma). “It’s like picking up a piece of the sun and flinging it out into space,” NOAA space weather scientist Mark Misch told Mashable earlier this year.

These events can damage our power and communications networks. Famously, a powerful CME in 1989 knocked out power to millions in Quebec, Canada. The CME hit the Earth’s magnetic field on March 12 of that year, and subsequently, wrote NASA astronomer Sten Odenwald“After 2:44 a.m. on March 13, weak currents were found in Quebec’s electrical power grid. In less than two minutes, the entire Quebec power grid lost power. During the ensuing 12-hour blackout, millions were without power and found People suddenly find themselves in dark office buildings, underground pedestrian tunnels and in stalled elevators.

Two views of the coronal mass ejection, or CME, that was ejected from the Sun in February 2000.
Image credit: SOHO/ESA/NASA

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Parker Solar Probe researchers expect that the spacecraft, equipped with instruments to measure and image the solar wind, will enable us to better predict when and where a powerful coronal ejection will occur. For example, when a coronal ejection bursts from the surface of the Sun, it must travel more than 92 million miles to reach Earth, but along the way this hot gas will “accumulate” the solar wind in front of it. “This will affect the date of its arrival on Earth,” Al-Rawafi said. Knowledge about space dynamics is crucial: good space weather forecasting would allow power utilities to temporarily shut down power to avoid a power surge from a coronal eruption, potentially cutting off power to millions.

On the outskirts of the corona, the spacecraft is relentlessly exposed to brutal heat and radiation, and in September 2022, it flew through “one of the most powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs) ever recorded.” NASA said. However, the vehicle remains in great condition. This is thanks in large part to the 4.5-inch-thick carbon heat shield directed toward the sun. The shield itself reaches a temperature of about 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, but just a couple of feet behind the shield, the surroundings look surprisingly pleasant.

“Most devices work at room temperature,” Al-Rawafi said.