The Parker spacecraft has entered the solar corona and is photographing jets of plasma there.
The dream of scientists, who have been waiting for six decades to see the solar corona from the inside, is gradually coming true. The Parker Solar Probe approached her - the corona. Slightly, but plunged into this external - unknown - region of the atmosphere of our star. And captured the cyclopean processes taking place there.
On November 8, 2018, when the probe was about 23 million kilometers from the Sun, coronal screamers - jets of solar plasma - hit the lens of its WISPR (Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe) camera. This photo was recently released by NASA.
The historical photograph is the first of the solar corona. Made from the Parker Solar Probe.
Experts explain: the Sun burst from its eastern edge with plasma jets. The bright circle sparkling in the picture just below the jets is Mercury. A dozen of some kind of black circles are not alien ships, not a swarm of planets like nibiru, but shooting defects.
Let me remind you that Parker Solar Probe launched from Earth on August 12, 2018, circled Venus on September 28 and rushed towards the Sun. October 29, 2018 was at a distance of 43 million kilometers from our star. And thus broke the record of the Helios-2 apparatus, created by scientists from Germany and the United States, which has been held since 1976.
The probe will continue to fly up to the Sun from time to time. 24 rapprochements planned. November was the first of them. On the latter, the device should be only 6 million kilometers from the star. That is, in his very crown. Scientists hope that the information gathered there will help to unravel the secrets of many processes in the power of which are both the Earth and its inhabitants.
With each orbit, the probe will fly closer and closer to the Sun.
Promotional video:
The mission - the hottest in the history of astronautics - may provide answers to key questions in solar physics. For example, it will allow you to find out why the outer atmosphere of the star is much hotter than its visible surface.
The temperature on the sun's surface barely exceeds 6 thousand degrees. Logically, it should decrease with distance from the star. But the temperature, on the contrary, is rising. Hundreds of times. The outer atmosphere of the Sun - the very corona - is heated up to a million degrees. This misunderstanding has been puzzling for over 60 years, since it was first discovered.
There is an unsolved mystery in the solar wind. This hot stream of charged particles, rushing from our star at a speed of several million kilometers per hour, "washes" our entire system. Planets, comets, asteroids "feel" its bursts. And next to the Sun - at the surface - there is no wind. Why? It is not clear yet.
The WISPR camera that filmed is visible in the diagram.
REFERENCE
Iron will melt, but Parker Solar Probe won't
The Parker Solar Probe was designed and built by experts from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland under NASA's Living With a Star program.
Initially, the start was scheduled for 2015. But it was delayed for 3 years. And good. Scientists seemed to be "guessing" so that the probe would be near the Sun during its maximum activity. To catch the riot of the sun and fall into many solar storms.
The probe should fly by at least 2025.
The probe, and indeed the entire mission, is named after the famous American astrophysicist Eugene Parker. By the way, while he is alive, he celebrated his 90th birthday and continues to unravel the mysteries of the Sun, starting to do this back in the 50s of the last century.
The size of the Parker Solar Probe is the size of a parquet SUV. The probe is refractory. Must withstand heating at 1400 - 1500 degrees Celsius. This is almost the melting point of iron. It will be protected from the heat of the sun by a porous coating made of carbon composite 11.43 centimeters thick and a shield made of the same material. Under it, as if under an umbrella, the apparatus will hide from both scorching rays and hard X-rays. The protection is light - it weighs almost nothing, but it is refractory.
The power supply is from solar panels. Which is natural for such a mission. Battery panels are rotatable. Their tilt angle will decrease as they approach the Sun. And part of the batteries is to hide in the shadow of the shield.
The researchers assure that the temperature inside the probe, where the equipment is installed, will be room temperature even on the hottest days. Well, almost room temperature - 29 degrees.
VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY