OrbitalHub

NASA dicit:

During a brief swing by Venus, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe detected a natural radio signal that revealed the spacecraft had flown through the planet’s upper atmosphere. This was the first direct measurement of the Venusian atmosphere in nearly 30 years — and it looks quite different from Venus’ past. A study published today in Geophysical Research Letters confirms that Venus’ upper atmosphere undergoes puzzling changes over a solar cycle, the Sun’s 11-year activity cycle. This marks the latest clue to untangling how and why Venus and Earth are so different.

The data sonification in the video translates data from Parker Solar Probe’s FIELDS instrument into sound. FIELDS detected a natural, low-frequency radio emission as it moved through Venus’ atmosphere that helped scientists calculate the thickness of the planet’s electrically charged upper atmosphere, called the ionosphere. Understanding how Venus’ ionosphere changes will help researchers determine how Venus, once so similar to Earth, became the world of scorching, toxic air it is today.

Video credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Scientific Visualization Studio/Mark SubbaRao (NASA/GSFC): Lead Visualizer/Glyn Collinson (NASA/GSFC): Lead Scientist/Joy Ng (USRA): Lead Producer/Lina Tran (SGT): Lead Writer

NASA dicit:

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission has returned unprecedented data from near the Sun, culminating in new discoveries published on December 4, 2019, in the journal Nature. Among the findings are new understandings of how the Sun’s constant outflow of material, the solar wind, behaves. Seen near Earth — where it can interact with our planet’s natural magnetic field and cause space weather effects that interfere with technology — the solar wind appears to be a relatively uniform flow of plasma. But Parker Solar Probe’s observations reveal a complicated, active system not seen from Earth.

Video Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

ULA dixit:

“Parker Solar Probe (previously Solar Probe, Solar Probe Plus, or Solar Probe+, abbreviated PSP) is a NASA robotic spacecraft en route to probe the outer corona of the Sun. It will approach to within 8.86 solar radii (6.2 million kilometers or 3.85 million miles) from the “surface” (photosphere) of the Sun and will travel, at closest approach, as fast as 700,000 km/h (430,000 mph). ”

Video Credit: ULA

NASA dixit:

“NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission launched August 11 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The mission will be the first to fly directly through the Sun’s corona – the hazardous region of intense heat and solar radiation in the Sun’s atmosphere that is visible during an eclipse. It will gather data that could help answer questions about solar physics that have puzzled scientists for decades. Gathering information about fundamental processes near the Sun can help improve our understanding of how our solar system’s star changes the space environment, where space weather can affect astronauts, interfere with satellite orbits, or damage spacecraft electronics.”

Credits Video: NASA

NASA dixit:

“Parker Solar Probe mission will revolutionize our understanding of the Sun, where changing conditions can propagate out into the solar system, affecting Earth and other worlds. Parker Solar Probe will travel through the Sun’s atmosphere, closer to the surface than any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions — and ultimately providing humanity with the closest-ever observations of a star.

In order to unlock the mysteries of the Sun’s atmosphere, Parker Solar Probe will use Venus’ gravity during seven flybys over nearly seven years to gradually bring its orbit closer to the Sun. The spacecraft will fly through the Sun’s atmosphere as close as 3.8 million miles to our star’s surface, well within the orbit of Mercury and more than seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before. (Earth’s average distance to the Sun is 93 million miles.)

Flying into the outermost part of the Sun’s atmosphere, known as the corona, for the first time, Parker Solar Probe will employ a combination of in situ measurements and imaging to revolutionize our understanding of the corona and expand our knowledge of the origin and evolution of the solar wind. It will also make critical contributions to our ability to forecast changes in Earth’s space environment that affect life and technology on Earth.

Parker Solar Probe will perform its scientific investigations in a hazardous region of intense heat and solar radiation. The spacecraft will fly close enough to the Sun to watch the solar wind speed up from subsonic to supersonic, and it will fly though the birthplace of the highest-energy solar particles.

To perform these unprecedented investigations, the spacecraft and instruments will be protected from the Sun’s heat by a 4.5-inch-thick (11.43 cm) carbon-composite shield, which will need to withstand temperatures outside the spacecraft that reach nearly 2,500 F (1,377 C).”

Credits Video: NASA Goddard