The bright spot in the center of the image is Mercury
Was captured by the probe ‘Parker’ to some 27 million km of the Sun’s surface and shows a loop of the crown
NASA wants to reach the Sun
Farout, the new dwarf planet found in the outer reaches of the Solar System
The probe Parker is already in the hell of the sun. Protected by a heat shield of carbon that allows it to work in an environment extremely hostile, the ship that NASA launched the past month of August has begun to transmit scientific data that astrophysicists seek to investigate some of the enigmas that surround our star.
Parker’s Solar Probe is the object created by the man who is approaching the Sun so that the image taken from the solar corona -its aura or outer part – just present the space agency of the USA is also a photograph of record. Was captured last November 8, when he was about 27 million kilometers from the surface of the star. The record of approach to what had, until now, the probe Helios B, which in 1976 was placed at 44 million miles away.
According to detailed NASA in a press release, the bright spot that is seen almost in the centre of the image is Mercury, while the other dark spots that are on line are the result of the correction process.
The photo, taken with the instrument WISPR, shows a type of structure that there is in the atmosphere of the Sun called loop crown, which is formed by solar material and originates in regions in which there is great activity.
The data collected during the first approach to solar Parker were transmitted last December 7 and, according to the scientists who are analyzing, are of good quality. Due to the effects that the position in which you are working the probe with respect to the Sun and the Earth cause in the transmission, some of the data that you are gathering may not be sent to Earth until April 2019.
as you progress through this mission, of 1,300 million euros, the probe will be moving closer and closer to our star up until 2025 is set at approximately 6.8 million kilometers from its surface.
The solar wind
The name of the mission is a tribute to the life of Eugene Paker, the first scientist who theorized about the solar wind, back in the 50’s, when I started the space program. There was not a long time to wait to verify that Parker, who is now 91 years old, he was right. The solar wind is a continuous stream of particles from the solar corona and that, as if it were a huge bubble surrounds planets and other celestial bodies of the Solar System.
“The mysteries of solar that we want to solve are in the crown,” said Nicola Fox, director of the Division of Heliofísica of NASA, during the meeting of the American Geophysical Union held in Washington last week.
Among the issues of greatest interest to astrophysicists of this mission are included to clarify why the temperature is 300 times higher in the outer part of the Sun on its surface, or to understand how and why the solar wind accelerates. Better understand the functioning of our star, they argue, will also help to devise ways of shielding satellites and other land infrastructures vulnerable to solar activity.
As it stands Nour Raouafi, a scientist at the Johns Hopkins University, “Parker is on a mission of exploration and their potential to make new discoveries is huge.”
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