NASA was prepping up for a long time to launch its Parker Solar Probe, which is slated to reach the atmosphere of the Sun. Now, the probe has been successfully launched from Earth aboard United Launch Alliance's most powerful rocket Delta IV Heavy. This solar probe, named after solar physicist Dr. Eugene Parker, is supposed to get closer to the Sun than any other man-made vehicle ever.
Getting to the Sun is quite a difficult task not only because it's a sphere of hot plasma, with an internal convective motion that generates a magnetic field via a dynamo process but also because our home planet moves sideways compared to the Sun at about 67,000 miles an hour, stated NASA.
To reach the center of our Solar System, the Parker Solar Probe will have to cancel out that speed and to accomplish it, Parker mission has to move in the direction opposite to Earth. The solar probe actually required a huge amount of power when it was launched. That's why the Delta IV Heavy was used as it has more thrust than the normal ones. The rocket has been specially designed to provide some extra boost to the solar probe in order to place it on the right path toward the Sun.
However, Parker will receive even more boost on its journey. During its scheduled seven-year long mission, the probe will go for total seven flybys of Venus. It will make use of the gravity of the planet to move faster. Then, it will spiral in closer to the solar system's center. Throughout the course of time, Parker will achieve a speed of 430,000 miles an hour. This would make it the fastest moving space vehicle ever.
Once Parker reaches the corona of the Sun, it will study the Sun's energetic particles. This area is capable of reaching over 3 million degrees Fahrenheit. To be noted here, the Sun's corona is around 300 times hotter than the Sun's surface.
Being the first-ever mission of NASA to "touch" the Sun, the Parker Solar mission is about the size of a small car that will travel directly into the Sun's atmosphere. This is the first NASA mission that has been named for a living individual -- Eugene Parker -- the S Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago.
In the 1950s, Parker proposed several concepts about how stars–including our own Sun–give off energy, which he described as a complex system of plasmas, magnetic fields, and energetic particles. He theorized an explanation for the superheated solar atmosphere, the corona, which is–contrary to what was expected by physics laws – hotter than the surface of the Sun itself. The Parker Solar Probe will perform the closest-ever observations of a star when it travels through the Sun's corona.
