Solar Probe Plus – Delta IV H/Star-48BV – Canaveral SLC-37B – 12.08.2018 в 07:31 UTC

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https://blogs.nasa.gov/stem-innovation-lab/2018/07/20/wheres-parker-an-interactive-orbit-viewer-for-the-web/

Where's Parker? An interactive orbit viewer for the web

Neel Savani
Posted Jul 20, 2018 at 1:00 pm



We have created a "where's Parker?" web viewer. To help navigate where our Parker spacecraft will be in the future and to better understand how close to the Sun it will be going, check out our new interactive web tool that we quickly prototyped in a week.

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A freshman intern fr om the US Naval Academy (Abhishek Gorti) worked closely with me over the summer, and we spent a week to prototype a web development tool that everyone can use. All the software to recreate the orbit viewer is open source and available.

As an inspiration fr om our earlier blog about interactive touch-tables, we used D3 software web development to create an interactive display on the internet for everyone to better understand wh ere the Parker spacecraft is going.

The telemetry data for Parker came directly from the raw orbital information, which was then saved into a simple asii format. The file is available in our open source repo linked above. So feel free to take it to better understand for yourself.

What other features do you think would be really cool to add? Anyone brave enough to take our repo and add something on top, maybe a circle wh ere the planets, Venus and Mercury, are located? Let us know how you get along!!

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Parker Solar Probe--Mission Overview

NASA Goddard

Опубликовано: 20 июл. 2018 г.
2 часа назад

Parker Solar Probe will swoop to within 4 million miles of the sun's surface, facing heat and radiation like no spacecraft before it. Launching in 2018, Parker Solar Probe will provide new data on solar activity and make critical contributions to our ability to forecast major space-weather events that impact life on Earth.

In order to unlock the mysteries of the corona, but also to protect a society that is increasingly dependent on technology from the threats of space weather, NASA will send Parker Solar Probe to touch the Sun.

In 2017, the mission was renamed for Eugene Parker, the S. Chandrasekhar Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. In the 1950s, Parker proposed a number of concepts about how stars--including our Sun- -give off energy. He called this cascade of energy the solar wind, and he described an entire complex system of plasmas, magnetic fields, and energetic particles that make up this phenomenon. Parker also theorized an explanation for the superheated solar atmosphere, the corona, which is - contrary to what was expected by physics laws -- hotter than the surface of the sun itself.

This is the first NASA mission that has been named for a living individual.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_z19KPvV1whttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_z19KPvV1w (3:31)

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Parker Solar Probe Trailer

NASA Goddard

Опубликовано: 20 июл. 2018 г.
25 минут назад

Parker Solar Probe is NASA's mission to the Sun. The spacecraft will launch summer 2018.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLwdS3zBGhghttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLwdS3zBGhg (1:05)

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https://scontent-arn2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t42.9040-29/10000000_1738905069479677_757312097037058048_n.mp4?_nc_cat=0&efg=eyJ2ZW5jb2RlX3RhZyI6InNkIn0%3D&oh=591d1db48de85453bfa4ab572b120157&oe=5B529FC9 (57:45)

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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-prepares-to-launch-parker-solar-probe-a-mission-to-touch-the-sun

July 20, 2018

NASA Prepares to Launch Parker Solar Probe, a Mission to Touch the Sun

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• View and download multimedia for the news briefing associated with this story. 
  

Early on an August morning, the sky near Cape Canaveral, Florida, will light up with the launch of Parker Solar Probe. No earlier than Aug. 6, 2018, a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy will thunder to space carrying the car-sized spacecraft, which will study the Sun closer than any human-made object ever has.

On July 20, 2018, Nicky Fox, Parker Solar Probe's project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, Maryland, and Alex Young, associate director for science in the Heliophysics Science Division at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, introduced Parker Solar Probe's science goals and the technology behind them at a televised press conference fr om NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.

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"We've been studying the Sun for decades, and now we're finally going to go where the action is," said Young.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_z19KPvV1w
(video 3:31)
Parker Solar Probe will swoop to within 4 million miles of the sun's surface, facing heat and radiation like no spacecraft before it. Launching in 2018, Parker Solar Probe will provide new data on solar activity and make critical contributions to our ability to forecast major space-weather events that impact life on Earth.
Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Download this video in HD formats fr om NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio

Our Sun is far more complex than meets the eye. Rather than the steady, unchanging disk it seems to human eyes, the Sun is a dynamic and magnetically active star. The Sun's atmosphere constantly sends magnetized material outward, enveloping our solar system far beyond the orbit of Pluto and influencing every world along the way. Coils of magnetic energy can burst out with light and particle radiation that travel through space and create temporary disruptions in our atmosphere, sometimes garbling radio and communications signals near Earth. The influence of solar activity on Earth and other worlds are collectively known as space weather, and the key to understanding its origins lies in understanding the Sun itself.

"The Sun's energy is always flowing past our world," said Fox. "And even though the solar wind is invisible, we can see it encircling the poles as the aurora, which are beautiful – but reveal the enormous amount of energy and particles that cascade into our atmosphere. We don't have a strong understanding of the mechanisms that drive that wind toward us, and that's what we're heading out to discover."

That's where Parker Solar Probe comes in. The spacecraft carries a lineup of instruments to study the Sun both remotely and in situ, or directly. Together, the data from these state-of-the-art instruments should help scientists answer three foundational questions about our star.


A Sun-skimming mission like Parker Solar Probe has been a dream of scientists for decades, but only recently has the needed technology – like the heat shield, solar array cooling system, and fault management system – been available to make such a mission a reality.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman
Parker Solar Probe Beauty Images

One of those questions is the mystery of the acceleration of the solar wind, the Sun's constant outflow of material. Though we largely grasp the solar wind's origins on the Sun, we know there is a point – as-yet unobserved – wh ere the solar wind is accelerated to supersonic speeds. Data shows these changes happen in the corona, a region of the Sun's atmosphere that Parker Solar Probe will fly directly through, and scientists plan to use Parker Solar Probe's remote and in situ measurements to shed light on how this happens.

Second, scientists hope to learn the secret of the corona's enormously high temperatures. The visible surface of the Sun is about 10,000 F – but, for reasons we don't fully understand, the corona is hundreds of times hotter, spiking up to several million degrees F. This is counterintuitive, as the Sun's energy is produced at its core.

"It's a bit like if you walked away from a campfire and suddenly got much hotter," said Fox.

Finally, Parker Solar Probe's instruments should reveal the mechanisms at work behind the acceleration of solar energetic particles, which can reach speeds more than half as fast as the speed of light as they rocket away from the Sun. Such particles can interfere with satellite electronics, especially for satellites outside of Earth's magnetic field.

To answer these questions, Parker Solar Probe uses four suites of instruments.


Parker Solar Probe will launch on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The mission requires such a powerful launch vehicle – despite the spacecraft's relatively small size – because of the energy needed to achieve Parker Solar Probe's Sun-grazing orbit.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman
Multimedia: Parker Solar Probe Travels to Florida

The FIELDS suite, led by the University of California, Berkeley, measures the electric and magnetic fields around the spacecraft. FIELDS captures waves and turbulence in the inner heliosphere with high time resolution to understand the fields associated with waves, shocks and magnetic reconnection, a process by which magnetic field lines explosively realign.


Parker Solar Probe will explore the corona, a region of the Sun only seen from Earth when the Moon blocks out the Sun's bright face during total solar eclipses. The corona holds the answers to many of scientists' outstanding questions about the Sun's activity and processes. This photo was taken during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017.
Credits: NASA/Gopalswamy
NASA Eclipse Imagery

The WISPR instrument, short for Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe, is the only imaging instrument aboard the spacecraft. WISPR takes images from of structures like coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, jets and other ejecta from the Sun to help link what's happening in the large-scale coronal structure to the detailed physical measurements being captured directly in the near-Sun environment. WISPR is led by the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C.

Another suite, called SWEAP (short for Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation), uses two complementary instruments to gather data. The SWEAP suite of instruments counts the most abundant particles in the solar wind — electrons, protons and helium ions — and measures such properties as velocity, density, and temperature to improve our understanding of the solar wind and coronal plasma. SWEAP is led by the University of Michigan, the University of California, Berkeley, and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Finally, the ISʘIS suite – short for Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun, and including ʘ, the symbol for the Sun, in its acronym – measures particles across a wide range of energies. By measuring electrons, protons and ions, ISʘIS will understand the particles' lifecycles — wh ere they came from, how they became accelerated and how they move out from the Sun through interplanetary space. ISʘIS is led by Princeton University in New Jersey.

Parker Solar Probe is a mission some sixty years in the making. With the dawn of the Space Age, humanity was introduced to the full dimension of the Sun's powerful influence over the solar system. In 1958, physicist Eugene Parker published a groundbreaking scientific paper theorizing the existence of the solar wind. The mission is now named after him, and it's the first NASA mission to be named after a living person.

Only in the past few decades has technology come far enough to make Parker Solar Probe a reality. Key to the spacecraft's daring journey are three main breakthroughs: The cutting-edge heat shield, the solar array cooling system, and the advanced fault management system.

"The Thermal Protection System (the heat shield) is one of the spacecraft's mission-enabling technologies," said Andy Driesman, Parker Solar Probe project manager at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab. "It allows the spacecraft to operate at about room temperature."

Other critical innovations are the solar array cooling system and on-board fault management systems. The solar array cooling system allows the solar arrays to produce power under the intense thermal load from the Sun and the fault management system protects the spacecraft during the long periods of time when the spacecraft can't communicate with the Earth.

Using data from seven Sun sensors placed all around the edges of the shadow cast by the heat shield, Parker Solar Probe's fault management system protects the spacecraft during the long periods of time when it can't communicate with Earth. If it detects a problem, Parker Solar Probe will self-correct its course and pointing to ensure that its scientific instruments remain cool and functioning during the long periods when the spacecraft is out of contact with Earth.

Parker Solar Probe's heat shield – called the thermal protection system, or TPS – is a sandwich of carbon-carbon composite surrounding nearly four and half inches of carbon foam, which is about 97% air. Though it's nearly eight feet in diameter, the TPS adds only about 160 pounds to Parker Solar Probe's mass because of its lightweight materials.

Though the Delta IV Heavy is one of the world's most powerful rockets, Parker Solar Probe is relatively small, about the size of a small car. But what Parker Solar Probe needs is energy – getting to the Sun takes a lot of energy at launch to achieve its orbit around the Sun. That's because any object launched from Earth starts out traveling around the Sun at the same speed as Earth – about 18.5 miles per second – so an object has to travel incredibly quickly to counteract that momentum, change direction, and go near the Sun.

The timing of Parker Solar Probe's launch – between about 4 and 6 a.m. EDT, and within a period lasting about two weeks – was very precisely chosen to send Parker Solar Probe toward its first, vital target for achieving such an orbit: Venus.

"The launch energy to reach the Sun is 55 times that required to get to Mars, and two times that needed to get to Pluto," said Yanping Guo from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, who designed the mission trajectory. "During summer, Earth and the other planets in our solar system are in the most favorable alignment to allow us to get close to the Sun."

The spacecraft will perform a gravity assist to shed some of its speed into Venus' well of orbital energy, drawing Parker Solar Probe into an orbit that – already, on its first pass – carries it closer to the solar surface than any spacecraft has ever gone, well within the corona. Parker Solar Probe will perform similar maneuvers six more times throughout its seven-year mission, assisting the spacecraft to final sequence of orbits that pass just over 3.8 million miles from the photosphere.

"By studying our star, we can learn not only more about the Sun," said Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA HQ. "We can also learn more about all the other stars throughout the galaxy, the universe and even life's beginnings."

Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA's Living with a Star Program, or LWS, to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. LWS is managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Heliophysics Division of NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Johns Hopkins APL manages the Parker Solar Probe mission for NASA. APL designed and built the spacecraft and will also operate it.

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• View and download multimedia for the news briefing associated with this story.
  

By Sarah Frazier
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Last Updated: July 20, 2018
Editor: Rob Garner

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Delta IV Parker Solar Probe: Launching the Fastest Human-made Object

United Launch Alliance

Опубликовано: 20 июл. 2018 г.

ULA Trajectory Engineer Nick Driver on launching NASA's Parker Solar Probe mission atop ULA's Delta IV Heavy rocket. Usually used for large satellites, in this case the heavy lifter is being used to give a small spacecraft a high-energy delivery to the sun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77SG1EVBocQhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77SG1EVBocQ (2:01)

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https://blogs.nasa.gov/parkersolarprobe/2018/07/24/parker-solar-probe-launch-targeted-for-aug-11/

Parker Solar Probe Launch Targeted for Aug. 11

Anna Heiney
Posted Jul 24, 2018 at 4:40 pm


Illustration of NASA's Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. Image credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Steve Gribben

NASA and its mission partners are targeting Aug. 11 for the launch of the Parker Solar Probe mission to the Sun. The 45-minute launch window will open at 3:48 a.m. EDT. During final inspections following the encapsulation of the spacecraft, a small strip of foam was found inside the fairing and additional time is needed for inspection.

The spacecraft will launch on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Space Launch Complex 37 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

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Stephen Clark‏ @StephenClark1 1 ч. назад

The launch window on Aug. 11 opens at 3:48am EDT (0748 GMT), 11 days later than originally planned. Parker's planetary launch period closes Aug. 19, but could be extended to Aug. 23 and still allow for a Venus flyby in late Sept. Next planetary launch period opens in May 2019.

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ULA выпустил брошюру миссии

divh_parkersolarprobe_mob.pdf - 3.4 MB, 2 стр, 2018-07-24 22:13:05 UTC

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Countdown to T-Zero: Flying Faster, Hotter and Closer Than Ever to the Sun

NASAKennedy

Опубликовано: 27 июл. 2018 г.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe and its United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy launch vehicle prepare for an unprecedented mission to "kiss the Sun." The spacecraft aims to unravel 60 years' worth of mysteries surrounding the Sun's corona. Watch as NASA's Launch Services Program continues the countdown to T-zero. Visit http://www.nasa.gov/parkersolarprobe to learn more and watch the historic launch on NASA TV in the coming weeks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSgNtjoOc4Yhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSgNtjoOc4Y (3:27)

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Discovering the Sun's Mysteriously Hot Atmosphere

NASA Goddard

Опубликовано: 27 июл. 2018 г.

Something mysterious is going on at the Sun. In defiance of all logic, its atmosphere gets much, much hotter the farther it stretches from the Sun's blazing surface.

Temperatures in the corona — the Sun's outer atmosphere — spike to 3 million degrees Fahrenheit, while just 1,000 miles below, the underlying surface simmers at a balmy 10,000 F. How the Sun manages this feat is a mystery that dates back nearly 150 years, and remains one of the greatest unanswered questions in astrophysics. Scientists call it the coronal heating problem. Watch the video to learn how astronomers first discovered evidence for this mystery during an eclipse in the 1800s, and what scientists today think could explain it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYnUjtWCqA0https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYnUjtWCqA0 (3:28 )

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https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/nasa-s-parker-solar-probe-and-the-curious-case-of-the-hot-corona

July 27, 2018

NASA's Parker Solar Probe and the Curious Case of the Hot Corona

Something mysterious is going on at the Sun. In defiance of all logic, its atmosphere gets much, much hotter the farther it stretches fr om the Sun's blazing surface.

Temperatures in the corona — the tenuous, outermost layer of the solar atmosphere — spike upwards of 2 million degrees Fahrenheit, while just 1,000 miles below, the underlying surface simmers at a balmy 10,000 F. How the Sun manages this feat remains one of the greatest unanswered questions in astrophysics; scientists call it the coronal heating problem. A new, landmark mission, NASA's Parker Solar Probe — scheduled to launch no earlier than Aug. 11, 2018 — will fly through the corona itself, seeking clues to its behavior and offering the chance for scientists to solve this mystery.

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Fr om Earth, as we see it in visible light, the Sun's appearance — quiet, unchanging — belies the life and drama of our nearest star. Its turbulent surface is rocked by eruptions and intense bursts of radiation, which hurl solar material at incredible speeds to every corner of the solar system. This solar activity can trigger space weather events that have the potential to disrupt radio communications, harm satellites and astronauts, and at their most severe, interfere with power grids.

Above the surface, the corona extends for millions of miles and roils with plasma, gases superheated so much that they separate into an electric flow of ions and free electrons. Eventually, it continues outward as the solar wind, a supersonic stream of plasma permeating the entire solar system. And so, it is that humans live well within the extended atmosphere of our Sun. To fully understand the corona and all its secrets is to understand not only the star that powers life on Earth, but also, the very space around us.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYnUjtWCqA0
(video 3:28 )
The coronal heating problem remains one of the greatest unanswered questions in astrophysics. Learn how astronomers first discovered evidence for this mystery during an eclipse in the 1800s, and what scientists today think could explain it.
Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Joy Ng
Download this video in HD formats fr om NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio

A 150-year-old mystery

Most of what we know about the corona is deeply rooted in the history of total solar eclipses. Before sophisticated instruments and spacecraft, the only way to study the corona fr om Earth was during a total eclipse, when the Moon blocks the Sun's bright face, revealing the surrounding, dimmer corona.

The story of the coronal heating problem begins with a green spectral line observed during an 1869 total eclipse. Because different elements emit light at characteristic wavelengths, scientists can use spectrometers to analyze light fr om the Sun and identify its composition. But the green line observed in 1869 didn't correspond to any known elements on Earth. Scientists thought perhaps they'd discovered a new element, and they called it coronium.


Most of what we know about the corona is deeply rooted in the history of total solar eclipses. Parker Solar Probe will fly through this very region, seeking clues to the Sun's behavior. This photo was taken in Madras, Oregon, during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, 2017.
Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Gopalswamy

Not until 70 years later did a Swedish physicist discover the element responsible for the emission is iron, superheated to the point that it's ionized 13 times, leaving it with just half the electrons of a normal atom of iron. And therein lies the problem: Scientists calculated that such high levels of ionization would require coronal temperatures around 2 million degrees Fahrenheit — nearly 200 times hotter than the surface.

For decades, this deceptively simple green line has been the Mona Lisa of solar science, baffling scientists who can't explain its existence. Since identifying its source, we've come to understand the puzzle is even more complex than it first appeared.

"I think of the coronal heating problem as an umbrella that covers a couple of related confusing problems," said Justin Kasper, a space scientist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Kasper is also principal investigator for SWEAP, short for the Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation, an instrument suite aboard Parker Solar Probe. "First, how does the corona get that hot that quickly? But the second part of the problem is that it doesn't just start, it keeps going. And not only does heating continue, but different elements are heated at different rates." It's an intriguing hint at what's going on with heating in the Sun.

Since discovering the hot corona, scientists and engineers have done a great deal of work to understand its behavior. They've developed powerful models and instruments and launched spacecraft that watch the Sun around the clock. But even the most complex models and high-resolution observations can only partially explain coronal heating, and some theories contradict each other. There's also the problem of studying the corona from afar.

We may live within the Sun's expansive atmosphere, but the corona and solar plasma in near-Earth space differ dramatically. It takes the slow solar wind around four days to travel 93 million miles and reach Earth or the spacecraft that study it — plenty of time for it to intermix with other particles zipping through space and lose its defining features.


Above the surface, the corona (illustrated here) extends for millions of miles and roils with plasma. Eventually, it continues outward as the solar wind, a supersonic stream of plasma permeating the entire solar system.
Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Lisa Poje/Genna Duberstein

Studying this homogenous soup of plasma for clues to coronal heating is like trying to study the geology of a mountain, by sifting through sediment in a river delta thousands of miles downstream. By traveling to the corona, Parker Solar Probe will sample just-heated particles, removing the uncertainties of a 93-million-mile journey and sending back to Earth the most pristine measurements of the corona ever recorded.

"All of our work over the years has culminated to this point: We realized we can never fully solve the coronal heating problem until we send a probe to make measurements in the corona itself," said Nour Raouafi, Parker Solar Probe deputy project scientist and solar physicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

Traveling to the Sun is an idea older than NASA itself, but it's taken decades to engineer the technology that makes its journey possible. In that time, scientists have determined exactly what kinds of data — and corresponding instruments — they need in order to complete a picture of the corona and answer this ultimate of burning questions.

Explaining the corona's secrets

Parker Solar Probe will test two chief theories to explain coronal heating. The outer layers of the Sun are constantly boiling and roil with mechanical energy. As massive cells of charged plasma churn through the Sun — much the way distinct bubbles roll up through a pot of boiling water — their fluid motion generates complex magnetic fields that extend far up into the corona. Somehow, the tangled fields channel this ferocious energy into the corona as heat — how they do so is what each theory attempts to explain.


A closeup of the Sun's convective, or boiling, motion, with a small sunspot forming on the right, from Hinode, a collaboration between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The outer layers of the Sun are constantly boiling and roil with mechanical energy. This fluid motion generates complex magnetic fields that extend far up into the corona.
Credits: NASA/JAXA/Hinode

One theory proposes electromagnetic waves are the root of the corona's extreme heat. Perhaps that boiling motion launches magnetic waves of a certain frequency — called Alfvén waves — from deep within the Sun out into the corona, which send charged particles spinning and heat the atmosphere, a bit like how ocean waves push and accelerate surfers toward the shore.

Another suggests bomb-like explosions, called nanoflares, across the Sun's surface dump heat into the solar atmosphere. Like their larger counterparts, solar flares, nanoflares are thought to result from an explosive process called magnetic reconnection. Turbulent boiling on the Sun twists and contorts magnetic field lines, building up stress and tension until they explosively snap — like breaking an over-wound rubber band — accelerating and heating particles in their wake.

The two theories aren't necessarily mutually exclusive. In fact, to complicate matters, many scientists think both may be involved in heating the corona. Sometimes, for example, the magnetic reconnection that sets off a nanoflare could also launch Alfvén waves, which then further heat surrounding plasma.

The other big question is, how often do these processes happen — constantly or in distinct bursts? Answering that requires a level of detail we don't have from 93 million miles away.

"We're going close to the heating, and there are times Parker Solar Probe will co-rotate, or orbit the Sun at the same speed the Sun itself rotates," said Eric Christian, a space scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and member of the mission's science team. "That's an important part of the science. By hovering over the same spot, we'll see the evolution of heating."

Uncovering the evidence

Once Parker Solar Probe arrives at the corona, how will it help scientists distinguish whether waves or nanoflares drive heating? While the spacecraft carries four instrument suites for a variety of types of research, two in particular will obtain data useful for solving the coronal heating mystery: the FIELDS experiment and SWEAP.

Surveyor of invisible forces, FIELDS, led by the University of California, Berkeley, directly measures electric and magnetic fields, in order to understand the shocks, waves and magnetic reconnection events that heat the solar wind.

SWEAP — led by the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts — is the complementary half of the investigation, gathering data on the hot plasma itself. It counts the most abundant particles in the solar wind — electrons, protons and helium ions — and measures their temperature, how fast they're moving after they've been heated, and in what direction.

Together, the two instrument suites paint a picture of the electromagnetic fields thought to be responsible for heating, as well as the just-heated solar particles swirling through the corona. Key to their success are high-resolution measurements, capable of resolving interactions between waves and particles at mere fractions of a second.

Parker Solar Probe will swoop within 3.9 million miles of the Sun's surface — and while this distance may seem great, the spacecraft is well-positioned to detect signatures of coronal heating. "Even though magnetic reconnection events take place lower down near the Sun's surface, the spacecraft will see the plasma right after they occur," said Goddard solar scientist Nicholeen Viall. "We have a chance to stick our thermometer right in the corona and watch the temperature rise. Compare that to studying plasma that was heated four days ago from Earth, wh ere a lot of the 3D structures and time-sensitive information are washed out."


Artist's concept of NASA's Parker Solar Probe. The spacecraft will fly through the Sun's corona to trace how energy and heat move through the star's atmosphere.
Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL

This part of the corona is entirely unexplored territory, and scientists expect sights unlike anything they've seen before. Some think the plasma there will be wispy and tenuous, like cirrus clouds. Or perhaps it will appear like massive pipe cleaner-like structures radiating from the Sun.

"I'm pretty sure when we get that first round of data back, we'll see the solar wind at lower altitudes near the Sun is spiky and impulsive," said Stuart Bale, University of California, Berkeley, astrophysicist and FIELDS principal investigator. "I'd lay my money on the data being much more exciting than what we see near Earth."

The data is complicated enough — and comes from multiple instruments — that it will take scientists some time to piece together an explanation for coronal heating. And because the Sun's surface isn't smooth and varies throughout, Parker Solar Probe needs to make multiple passes over the Sun to tell the whole story. But scientists are confident it has the tools to answer their questions.

The basic idea is that each proposed mechanism for heating has its own distinct signature. If Alfvén waves are the source of the corona's extreme heat, FIELDS will detect their activity. Since heavier ions are heated at different rates, it appears that different classes of particles interact with those waves in specific ways; SWEAP will characterize their unique interactions.

If nanoflares are responsible, scientists expect to see jets of accelerated particles shooting out in opposite directions — a telltale sign of explosive magnetic reconnection. Wh ere magnetic reconnection occurs, they should also detect hot spots wh ere magnetic fields are rapidly changing and heating the surrounding plasma.

Discoveries lie ahead

There is an eagerness and excitement buzzing among solar scientists: Parker Solar Probe's mission marks a watershed moment in the history of astrophysics, and they have a real chance of unraveling the mysteries that have confounded their field for nearly 150 years.

By piecing together the inner workings of the corona, scientists will reach a deeper understanding of the dynamics that spark space weather events, shaping conditions in near-Earth space. But the applications of this science extend beyond the solar system too. The Sun opens a window into understanding other stars — especially those that also exhibit Sun-like heating — stars that could potentially foster habitable environments but are too far to ever study. And illuminating the fundamental physics of plasmas could likely teach scientists a great deal about how plasmas behave elsewh ere in the universe, like in clusters of galaxies or around black holes.

It's also entirely possible that we haven't even conceived of the greatest discoveries to come. It's hard to predict how solving coronal heating will shift our understanding of the space around us, but fundamental discoveries such as this have the capacity to change science and technology forever. Parker Solar Probe's journey takes human curiosity to a never-before-seen region of the solar system, wh ere every observation is a potential discovery.

"I'm almost certain we'll discover new phenomena we don't know anything about now, and that's very exciting for us," Raouafi said. "Parker Solar Probe will make history by helping us understand coronal heating — as well as solar wind acceleration and solar energetic particles — but I think it also has the potential to steer the direction of solar physics' future."

By Lina Tran
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

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Last Updated: July 27, 2018
Editor: Rob Garner

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Ken Kremer‏ @ken_kremer 11 ч. назад

#ParkerSolarProbe is on the move! Encapsulated in payload fairing. Transported this evening from Astrotech for @NASA to #SLC37 A few my pics from Rt 405 #Titusville. Launching Aug 11 @ulalaunch #DeltaIVHeavy - to "Touch Sun".
Credit: @ken_kremer http://spaceupclose.com 

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https://blogs.nasa.gov/parkersolarprobe/2018/07/31/parker-solar-probe-prepares-to-head-toward-launch-pad/

Parker Solar Probe Prepares to Head Toward Launch Pad

Sarah Frazier
Posted Jul 31, 2018 at 11:28 am

NASA's Parker Solar Probe has cleared the final procedures in the clean room before its move to the launch pad, where it will be integrated onto its launch vehicle, a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy.

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Parker Solar Probe was encapsulated within its fairing on July 16, 2018, in preparation for its move to Space Launch Complex 37. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman

Download images in HD formats fr om NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. 

On July 11, 2018, the spacecraft was lifted and mated to the third stage rocket motor, a Star 48BV from Northrop Grumman. In addition to using the largest operational launch vehicle, the Delta IV Heavy, Parker Solar Probe will use a third stage rocket to gain the speed needed to reach the Sun, which takes 55 times more energy than reaching Mars.


Parker Solar Probe is lifted and lowered toward the third-stage rocket motor. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman

On July 16, the spacecraft was encapsulated within its 62.7-foot fairing in preparation for the move from Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida, to Space Launch Complex 37 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, wh ere it will be integrated onto the Delta IV Heavy. Parker Solar Probe's launch is targeted for Aug. 11, 2018.


Parker Solar Probe sits inside half of its fairing. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman

By Geoff Brown

Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab

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https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/prepping-to-launch-for-the-sun

July 31, 2018

Prepping to Launch for the Sun



NASA's Parker Solar Probe has cleared the final procedures in the clean room before its move to the launch pad, where it will be integrated onto its launch vehicle, a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy. This is an historic mission that will revolutionize our understanding of the Sun, where changing conditions can propagate out into the solar system, affecting Earth and other worlds. Parker Solar Probe will travel through the Sun's atmosphere, closer to the surface than any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions — and ultimately providing humanity with the closest-ever observations of a star.

Seen here inside one half of its 62.7-foot tall fairing, the Parker Solar Probe was encapsulated on July 16, 2018, in preparation for the move fr om Astrotech Space Operations in Titusville, Florida, to Space Launch Complex 37 on Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, wh ere it will be integrated onto its launch vehicle for its launch that is targeted for August 11, 2018.

Image Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Ed Whitman

Last Updated: July 31, 2018
Editor: Yvette Smith