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A NASA Spacecraft Will Head Straight For the Sun -- Farther Than Any Probe Before It (abc.net.au)
A US spacecraft will swoop inside the Sun's corona, its superheated outer atmosphere, on a pathfinding mission to learn more about how stars work. Nasa's $1.5bn Parker Solar Probe, which will be protected by a shield that can withstand temperatures of 1,400C, will journey within 6m km of the Sun's surface, seven times closer than any previous spacecraft. From a report: Set to kick off next July, the plan is to plunge the Parker Solar Probe into the Sun's corona -- the hazy bit you can see around the edges of the Sun during a total solar eclipse -- to study this phenomenon. The car-sized spacecraft will get closer to the Sun than any other mission ever has. Travelling at the dizzying speed of more than 720,000 kilometres per hour, the probe will eventually come within less than 6.4 million kilometres of the Sun's surface. We've been studying the Sun for thousands of years, and even though we now have remote sensing observatories and spacecraft that examine it in spectacular detail, many questions still remain. The two big ones are: 1. Why is the corona on the outside of the Sun at least 300 times hotter than the surface? 2. Why does the solar wind speed up?
Put this story's headline with the previous one and I get the headline "Trump has NASA bomb the sun to prevent Climate Change"
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
...which was to have the probe do its work close to The Sun at night.
it has no temperature... so the shield material will get that hot... but what's going to protect what's behind that shield from that temperature?
Since it can only cool by radiation, it'll have to sink to the cold side, behind the spacecraft, right?
Q: How many Ice cubes were required to make this heat shield?
Q: How close will the probe get before it melts and then the probe is incinerated?
Can they use similar technology to get a probe to survive deeper into Jupiter or Saturn or any atmosphere having planet as? Better cloud pics of Jupiter would be awesome.
7 times farther from earth? 1/7th the distance? C'mon man, learn how to write technical sentences.
Does the headline writer know the difference between nearer and farther? Lots of probes have gone much farther than the sun.
Please remember to include all radioactive waste in the probe as part of the government's ongoing efforts to manage waste.
A NASA Spacecraft Will Head Straight For the Sun -- Farther Than Any Probe Before It
Err... what? Farther? Farther from what?
I think you meant closer to the Sun.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
We need this now, now that the world will end. FookeUsAll! Take me to the pilot in control!
Trump obviously got the idea to bomb the sun from watching "Sunshine" on TV.
Because it is accelerating!
The pyramid is opening!
Which one?
The one with the ever widening hole in it!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Couldn't they just borrow a ship from Hotblack Desiato?
Since the Earth is moving in solar orbit, so is the spacecraft launched from Earth. You have to lose quite a bit of energy to slow down enough to drop toward the Sun. There is a MinutePhysics video on the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Eh, we should just send him as the first person to land on the Sun... but don't worry, we'll land at night!
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
Simon: My God! The sun.
Elaine: What is it, Simon?
Simon: A large, fiery ball at the center of our solar system, but that's not important now. We're heading right for it.
If the synopsis is right (1400C/300=4C) then any astronaut who can make it through the corona to land on the sun is going to need a parka!
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
If so, then we need to fire everyone involved with this mission, as that would be about the least efficient way to go.
In order to go "straight for the Sun," the spacecraft would first have to shed 100% of the orbital velocity it begins with by being launched from Earth, which is moving at incredible speed in its orbit - moving nearly 600 million miles in a year, or about 67,000 miles per hour. In doing so it will also need to overcome Earth's gravity. That's a stupid amount of energy.
Much better would be to use tried and true orbital strategies to escape Earth's orbit, and in such a way that the spacecraft escapes in a direction that will take it along a path to the Sun that does not require using an inordinate amount of fuel, or silly approaches to over-complicate a problem that has already been solved.
Sheesh, why not just say 6Gm?
Even the way it's written is wrong. 6M is 6 million, 6m is thousandths, so 6m km = 6 meters.
and we can return the probe to 1989 to save the whales!
"Seven times closer" - what positive number can you multiply by 7 to get a smaller number? The measure is distance, not closeness. Just say "One seventh the distance" - it's not any more difficult, and it actually makes sense.
CF "x times shorter", "x times colder", "x times dimmer", "x times quieter", etc
The summary is very wrong. The sun's surface is ~5800K. The corona (above the surface) is ~500,000 K, or 100x hotter than that (or more; the temperature of the corona varies). This means if the probe is designed to burn up at ~1700K, it won't get to 5 km above the surface; in fact, it will burn up more than 2000 km above the surface.
Unless you define "surface" as the top of the corona... in which case maybe, but the temperature number is wrong at that point.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
It's depressing how stupid "science reporting" can be. Mistakes of several orders of magnitude are often never picked up by so-called "science journalists".
Never mind, here is a slide show!
The summary is very wrong. The sun's surface is ~5800K. The corona (above the surface) is ~500,000 K, or 100x hotter than that (or more; the temperature of the corona varies). This means if the probe is designed to burn up at ~1700K, it won't get to 5 km above the surface; in fact, it will burn up more than 2000 km above the surface.
Unless you define "surface" as the top of the corona... in which case maybe, but the temperature number is wrong at that point.
I guess we have to wait until 2369 for Dr. Reyga to develop metaphasic shielding to know for sure...
Wow that's close.
Neither TFS or TFA say how any of the goals are going to be achieved.
Bonus points would have been awarded for some background on the cooling tech.
Nerd site fail.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Will the probe be big enough to bring the whales back with it this time?
When are y'all going to hire a proofreader or editor so that your shit starts making sense again?
Put this story's headline with the previous one and I get the headline "Trump has NASA bomb the sun to prevent Climate Change"
SD
What technique did you use to get that phrase from those two headlines?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It's OK, their going at night...
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
First you have to install a 10k gold-plated chair and toilet in the spacecraft and stock it with sufficient KFC Gravy Bowls. Then tell him that Obama was opposed to being the first man on the Sun.
You are welcome on my lawn.
https://whttps//science.slashd...
There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.
Well, if we want to be pedantic...
It's also wrong in that you don't "head straight for the sun". The Earth (and any probe launched from it) has an orbital speed of around 100,000kmh. If you launch from Earth and then head towards the sun - e.g., point the nose of the probe at the sun and thrust - you are going to miss our nearest star by a wide margin.
There are two options you can take: 1) you can decelerate 100,000kmh and then let the sun's gravity pull you inwards (then the "point nose at sun and thrust" works as expected) or you can accelerate, which will cause you to loop inward (the usual example of how this works is to take a yo-you and spin it around your body; the faster you spin it, the smaller the orbit). Counter-intuitively, this has the advantage of using less fuel too (instinct tells us slowing down would require less fuel, but that's because we've been spoiled by 4 billion years of evolution in an environment with ample gravity and friction). The probe will orbit the sun in ever-decreasing circles (technically, huge wobbly S-curves because both the probe and the sun are careening through galactic space)
But in neither case are you really heading TOWARD the Sun; the probe is moving on an indirect path to where the sun will be seven years from now.
All pedantic I know, but fun to think about. Orbital mechanics are weirdly fascinating. You go in to go out, up to go down, and speed up to slow down.
It will orbit around the sun, not fly "straight" for it.
The Electric Universe Theory explains both phenomena. Of course *popular* science as decreed that can't be true. So? Prove it false. The gravity only theory has many flaws.
Please!
Does the Sun have a surface?
That's what I came here for. If only it was spelled correctly.
True, should be they're there...
Sorry.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
It is not just about temperature, but about the density too. There are many orders of magnitude difference between the corona density and the photosphere. It could be quite easily to keep the probe cool in the corona from something like evaporative cooling, as the heating rate from conduction would be low, at least compared to radiation.
Your write.
Wanna buy a shirt?
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We all know this is just a cover story. They're really going to slingshot around the sun to travel back to 1986 and kidnap a marine biologist.
Interesting point. Eventually the surface of any object will reach the temperature of the substance that it is in, but how long that takes does depend in part on the density. It would be pretty fascinating to see a probe that does ablative cooling, leaving a tail like a comet. But I can't even begin to imagine how much ice would be needed. :-)
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Your understanding of heat transfer is very wrong. The probe could very well operate within the corona depending upon the density of the material, the heat transfer coefficient, and the thermal mass of the probe.
Dunk your hand into a pot of boiling water (212 F). Severe injury. Hold you hand in the air of an oven preheated to 400 F. Gets uncomfortable, but after a much longer period of time. Put your hand in a silicone glove before reaching in the oven. Hell, you can even pick up metal pans heated to 400 F then.
The principal significance of the temperature of the corona is that it limits the ability of the probe to dissipate its heat into the environment, because you can't reject heat from a colder object into a hotter environment without adding energy to the system... Orbit through portions of the corona and back outside so that you can cool the probe? A good part of that problem becomes solvable.