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PSA: NASA's Parker Solar Probe Is Launching Saturday Morning; Here's How To Watch (pbs.org)
In the early hours of Saturday morning, NASA is scheduled to launch the Parker Solar Probe for a seven-year mission to study the sun and its atmosphere. The spacecraft will take off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, traveling up to 430,000 miles per hour towards the star -- that will make it the fastest spacecraft ever. Assuming you're reading this story around the time it's published, you still have time to watch the launch via NASA's livestream. The launch window for the Parker Solar Probe opens at 3:33 a.m. ET Saturday, but the exact launch time is unknown.
The New York Times has published a story about Eugene N. Parker, the professor that the spacecraft was named after. It is the first time that NASA has named a mission for a living person. Here's an excerpt from the report: In a foundational paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, Dr. Parker described how charged particles streamed continuously from the sun, like the flow of water spreading outward from a circular fountain. Almost no one believed him. [...] Four years later, Dr. Parker was vindicated when Mariner 2, a NASA spacecraft en route to Venus, measured energetic particles streaming through interplanetary space -- exactly what Dr. Parker had predicted. Scientists now call that stream of particles the solar wind. UPDATE: After several delays, the Sun-chasing probe successfully launched on August 12th at 3:31AM.
The New York Times has published a story about Eugene N. Parker, the professor that the spacecraft was named after. It is the first time that NASA has named a mission for a living person. Here's an excerpt from the report: In a foundational paper published in The Astrophysical Journal, Dr. Parker described how charged particles streamed continuously from the sun, like the flow of water spreading outward from a circular fountain. Almost no one believed him. [...] Four years later, Dr. Parker was vindicated when Mariner 2, a NASA spacecraft en route to Venus, measured energetic particles streaming through interplanetary space -- exactly what Dr. Parker had predicted. Scientists now call that stream of particles the solar wind. UPDATE: After several delays, the Sun-chasing probe successfully launched on August 12th at 3:31AM.
Fifty years ago, the gas model of the sun was the dominant idea. Physical measurements have since shown that the sun actually has a solid crust consisting mostly of iron. The solar wind, magnetic force field and plasma behaviour is more in line with the solid crust observation. So Parker's paper in 1958 was quite radical at the time. See http://thesurfaceofthesun.com for details.
Another live feed available here.
Thunderbirds are go!
Then there is the flip side of the equation: If we are indeed at the start of a Maunder minimum then DRILL BABY DRILL! Frac the shit out of all the shale until the water in our farmer's houses explode! We are going to need the oil companies for the same reason Hitler needed to turn south in the Ukraine. And a presence in North Africa with control of the Suez
All the bullshit I just spouted aside, if we are indeed at the start of a quiet period of solar activity then the benefit may indeed be a moderation of our climate and a return, however brief, to a semblance of the climate conditions and annual cycles we had only 30 years ago. Even if we dump a butt tonne more CO2 into the atmosphere by burning millions of tonnes of fossil fuels to compensate for killer winter cold especially in Northern Sates and Canada, a series of years as cold as the little ice age of the Baroque era will only be survived with the increased use of fossil fuels. The numbers freezing in the streets of Europe and North America will be astounding, during the little ice age it was common to find the poor and their children frozen to death outside or even inside the churches.
The data from this probe will help tell the tale, if there are any of us left to crunch it.
This message was not sent from an iPhone because Peter Sellers really was a deviated prevert without a dime for the call
We hardly knew you.
Because then it wont get incinerated..
I don't get how it will see where it is going?
Scrubbed for 24 hours. Sad. This is the first launch I've been excited for since maybe Spirit and Opportunity. Hopefully tomorrow night.
It's canceled until the same time tomorrow they said.
We have a scrub!
Mission scrubbed for today. Oh, well.
They use nightvision tech.
Why call it Parkes when it could now be called Disaster Area, after the plutonium rock band from the Gagrakacka Mind Zones, which was generally regarded as not only the loudest rock band in the Galaxy, but also as being the loudest noise of any kind at all.
FFS Shut up or julius orange might hear you.
It's not to study anything and certainly not anything climate related, its to lay the first brick in a space wall to keep space Mexicans out!
Nudge nudge wink wink.
But you're lie might also work.... "it's to prove global warming is fake news and we're actually about to freeze our butts off, and its all because of solar radiation, and space Mexicans and we need to burn a butt load more coal to keep Americans warm in this super cold snap....."
Go Space Force!
(Yes I know it's for the scientist)
Naming it Parker suddenly makes me think of Spider-Man "PARKER!!! BRING ME MORE PHOTOS OF SPIDERMAN!!!" I guess he's really changing roles... now it's time for pictures of the sun!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
yeah I'm old
Mostly random stuff.
Please try your launch again tomorrow.
They had a problem with Helium. Unlike SpaceX which immediately provides details about what they know, what went wrong, and what they're going to do to fix it, ULA and NASA have elected to say only that they had a problem with helium.
Now, I'm not generally a fan of helium. I don't breath much of it, it makes balloon blowers sound weird, and this one time it yelled at me in a crowded theater, but this is hardly the transparent open communication I expect from a national taxpayer funded institution.
Next thing they're going to claim this thing will do 24 orbits around the sun. Oh wait, they did. I predict its immediate disintegration on the first kiss of the corona. You read it here first. Laugh at me later.
E
Are they launching it at night so the sun doesn't burn it up?