Icarus, consider yourself avenged.
That would have been a great name for this probe.
NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever
21–30 of 89 posts
Re: NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever
#22From the article: > A NASA spacecraft has entered a previously unexplored region of the Solar System — the Sun’s outer atmosphere, or corona. > The mission’s closest approach is scheduled for 2025 at a distance of just 6.2 million kilometres from the solar surface, well within the orbit of Mercury. From the paper, it looks like the closest approach was > 18.4 solar radii (R⊙ ≡ 6.95 × 10⁵ km) from the center of the Su…
For one, the NASA article says 5 million miles (12 solar radii), not kilometers. So it's actually about 2/3 the quoted number.
Doesn't NASA have some sort of educational duty? Surely they should be using SI units always so as to avoid exactly this kind of confusion.
Re: NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever
#23For metric system people, if the Sun and the Earth were 1 meter apart, the probe would get as close as 11cm from the Sun.
(site writes: "If Earth was at one end of a yard-stick and the Sun on the other, Parker Solar Probe will make it to within four inches of the solar surface.")
Re: NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever
#24If the Moon was 10x as far away from the Earth as it is now then that would still be closer to Earth than this probe ever was to the Sun.
Re: NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever
#25For metric system people, if the Sun and the Earth were 1 meter apart, the probe would get as close as 11cm from the Sun. (site writes: "If Earth was at one end of a yard-stick and the Sun on the other, Parker Solar Probe will make it to within four inches of the solar surface.")
The original phrasing is more accurate. "Earth and sun being ... apart" doesnt tell you if you are measuring from the center or surface.
Re: NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever
#26Does anyone know what the differences in intent and mission scope are between this and the Solar Orbiter?
This obviously seems to go a lot closer, but both missions seem similar length and NASA is involved in both.
Re: NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever
#27For metric system people, if the Sun and the Earth were 1 meter apart, the probe would get as close as 11cm from the Sun. (site writes: "If Earth was at one end of a yard-stick and the Sun on the other, Parker Solar Probe will make it to within four inches of the solar surface.")
But that's not really touching the sun, is it?
Re: NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever
#28I get the heat part (well, after reading the explanations in the article that is), but how do they send the data back to Earth, considering the amount of EM noise that close to the Sun?
Re: NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever
#29Does anyone know what the differences in intent and mission scope are between this and the Solar Orbiter? This obviously seems to go a lot closer, but both missions seem similar length and NASA is involved in both.
They're complementary. Parker Solar Probe (PSP) carries a smaller, less capable payload than Solar Orbiter (SO) but it goes closer to the Sun, allowing for direct sampling of the corona. PSP cannot carry cameras for observing the Sun because of how close it gets (heat shield reasons), but SO can. This allows SO to observe the Sun's corona on a large scale, while PSP can validate those measurements with local sample collection.
Re: NASA spacecraft ‘touches’ the Sun for the first time ever
#30For metric system people, if the Sun and the Earth were 1 meter apart, the probe would get as close as 11cm from the Sun. (site writes: "If Earth was at one end of a yard-stick and the Sun on the other, Parker Solar Probe will make it to within four inches of the solar surface.")
The original phrasing is more accurate. "Earth and sun being ... apart" doesnt tell you if you are measuring from the center or surface.
> "Earth and sun being ... apart" doesnt tell you if you are measuring from the center or surface.
Typically in the English language that is understood as surface to surface.