A spacecraft is about to fly into the Sun’s atmosphere for the first time

Almost no one writes about it Parker Solar Probe already.

Of course, the spacecraft attracted some attention when it entered orbit. After all, it is the fastest moving object ever built by humans. At maximum speed achieved by the Sun’s gravity, the probe reaches a speed of 430,000 miles per hour, or more than one-sixth of 1 percent of the speed of light. That kind of speed would take you from New York to Tokyo in less than a minute.

Parker Solar Probe also has the distinction of being the first NASA spacecraft to be named after a living person. At the time of its release, in August 2018, physicist Eugene Parker was 91 years old.

But for six years, the probe travels in space and flies near the sun? Not so much. Let’s face it, the astrophysical properties of the sun and its complex structure are not something most people think about on a daily basis.

However, the tiny probe — less than a metric ton in mass and a science payload of just 110 pounds (50 kg) — is about to turn its star. Quite literally. On Christmas Eve, the Parker Solar Probe will make its closest approach to the sun yet. It will fly into the solar atmosphere for the first time, coming within just 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) of the sun’s surface.

Yes, it will be very hot. Scientists estimate that the probe’s heat shield will withstand temperatures above 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,371 C) on Christmas Eve, nearly the opposite pole of the North Pole.

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I spoke to NASA’s science chief, Nicky Fox, to find out why the probe was subjected to such torture. Before moving to NASA headquarters, Fox was a project scientist for the Parker Solar Probe, and he explained that scientists really wanted to understand the origin of the solar wind.

This is the flow of charged particles from the corona, the outermost layer of the sun. Fox explained that scientists have been interested in this particular mystery for more than half a century.

“We just want to find where the solar wind is born,” he said.

Back in the 1950s, before we had satellites or spacecraft to measure the sun’s properties, Parker predicted the existence of this solar wind. Until the Mariner 2 mission began measuring the solar wind in 1962, the scientific community was highly skeptical of the idea—many scoffed at Parker.

As the scientific community began to accept Parker’s theory, they wanted to know more about the solar wind, the main component of the entire solar system. Although the solar wind is not visible to the naked eye, when you see an aurora on Earth, it is the solar wind interacting with the Earth’s magnetosphere in a particularly violent way.