The probe
Hello, friends I am shubham and this is spaceinfinite . the
place where I tell you about interesting space related stuff. So stay tunned
because today I am going to share some information about NASA’s solar mission of ‘parker solar probe’ which
is surely going to be a historical space mission in the history of human kind.
So friends, NASA
officially announced the mission back in 2009, which was a source
of curiosity for peoples that how NASA could send a probe to a huge fireball,
in front of which our earth or any other planet in our solar system is nothing
, so how could NASA send a spacecraft which could not only survive the intense
heat of our sun, but also work properly and gather the information required by
the scientists about the nearest star to our planet . but on 12th
august 2018 , NASA proved that it could be done by launching the parker solar
probe on a long journey to our sun in order to understand it.
So friends what you think that how scientists would be able to do that , lets
talk about it .
Starting from the origin , friends I would like to mention
that parker solar probe was first named as solar probe only , but later on NASA
decieded to rename it to ‘Parker solar probe’ in order to give tribute to mr. Eugene parker , professor in university of California.
Parker solar probe ‘s aim is to reach the Corona of the sun
, which is insanely hot place, even far away hotter than the surface of the
sun, as per the scientific measurements the surface temperature of sun is
approx 5,500 degree Celsius. But the
temperature of Corona is about a million degree Celsius!!! Well I don’t really know that how it could be
possible but scientists have given many theories regarding this, but I
don’t think any of them could be considered completely
true.
The parker solar probe will approach within the 8.86 solar
radii i.e 6.2
million killometeres or 3.85 million miles near the photosphere i.e the surface of the
sun. well it sounds that the probe is not really close enough to the sun , but
friends trust me it is insanely near to that giant fireball .
Did I mentioned the speed at which the probe will travel
towards the star?
Well its 7,00,000 km/hr
i.e 7 lakh km/hr. that is
incredibly fast speed and officially the fastest moving object made by the
human kind ever, that’s a proud moment , isn’t it?
Talking a bit
technically , the parker solar probe mission is a heliophysics mission, which means the mission which will
include the complete study of the sun, whether it be inside the sun or outside
, its neighboring environment and everything related to it, in short it is the
study of complete physics about the sun. which would be very helpful in
studying the working or mechanism
of not only our sun but also other stars
in our universe, specially the medium sized stars like our sun.
The structure and work
Well talking about the dimensions of the probe , so the
launch mass of the probe was 685 kgs and the dry mass is 555 kgs. Its almost
the mass of an average car.
NASA launched the probe from the Cape Canaveral air force
station, Florida on 12th of august 2018.
The orbit of the probe around the sun is of about 88 days.
Now comes the most important question that how would the
probe will withstand the intense heat of
our sun , so here’s the answer to this.
Well the probe is protected with a solar shield of 2-3
metres which of hexagonal shape, which is about 11.4 cm thick . the shield is
made up of reinforced carbon-carbon composite which could easily withstand the
temperature of about 1370 degree Celsius.
Friends solar radiation in the corona is about 475 times
more than that to the solar radiation on the earth’s orbit.
The spacecraft systems and scientific instruments are placed
in the central position behind the
shield’s shadow. As the shield would be only at the solar facing side , and
scientist would not like the instruments to face the sun directly as it would
cause the instruments to destroy completely.
I would like to mention that the parker solar probe is the
most autonomous probe ever .
As the distance of sun from the earth is about 150 million
kms, so the radio communications from the earth to the probe would require
about 8 minutes to reach the probe, and to make the probe work properly and to
keep instruments safe from being in
direct contact from the sun, the probe should change its direction continuously
in order to keep the solar shield to face the sun directly and avoid the instruments
to be burned . and it was not a good idea to control the probe from the earth ,
so the scientists and engineers decided to make the probe nearly
completely autonomous machine , so that
the things could be done smoothly and
right.
Friends , the main
power source of the probe is obiviously solar panels, but it would not be a
good idea to make solar panel face the sun all the time, so the panels wold
face the heat and gather energy for a short time and get inside the probe , in
order to avoid burning the probe also
include the pumped- fluid cooling system to maintsain operating temperature of
the solar panels and instruementations .
Goals
When talking about the tasks to be performed by the probe
then it includes a lot of tasks which are assigned to the probe.
1.
The first task of the probe is to trace the
energy flow that heats the corona and accelerates solar winds .
2.
Second task is to determine the structure and
dynamics of the magnetic fields and find out the source of origin of solar
winds.
3.
The third task is to determine that what
mechanism accelerate and transport the energetic particles.
For performing such tasks many systems are
included in the probe which are:
1.
FIELDS:
To measure the electric and magnetic fields around sun.
2.
ISOISl: This investigation system will measure
the energetic electrons , protons, and heavy ions.
3.
WISPR: optical telescopes that will acquire
image of corona and inner Heliosphere.
4.
SWEAP: To
count the electrons, protons and helium ions and measure their
properties such as velocity, density, temperature.
5.
HelioSPP: theory and modeling investigation for
good results from the mission.
So, friends these were the five major tasks to be performed by the parker
solar probe.
Hope you liked the information about the parker solar probe.
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visiting the spacinfinite.blogspot.com
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content.
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