NASA is preparing to set a record by bringing the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft closer to the sun as humans have never done before.

On January 6, 2024, foreign news agencies reported that the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is this year trying to take the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft through the sun's atmosphere as well. Speed: 435,000 miles per hour That's 3.8 million away Just a mile from the fiery 'roof'.

The Parker project scientist said in an interview that we're basically about to land on a star. This will be a great achievement for humanity. This is equivalent to landing on the moon in 1969.

“Although 3.8 million miles may seem like a lot of distance, it is only four percent of the distance between Earth and the Sun. Despite its distance, the Parker Solar Probe must withstand temperatures of up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

In addition, NASA boasts that the probe has already touched the sun. It was 8.1 million miles from the sun's surface at the end of last year. Then on Christmas Eve this year it will fly past and break records.

As for the possibility of “landing” on the sun, there is no need to say more. It is a far cry from the experience of landing on a solid mass like Mars. The sun is a rotating cloud of hydrogen and helium gas. Which are pressed together by their own gravity and when this material leaves the sun's corona or outer atmosphere, it will become the solar wind. It forms a magnetic bubble around the sun.

What is commonly called the “surface” is actually the photosphere, or “light sphere”, the first layer of the Sun's atmosphere. It gets its name because it emits most of the visible light spectrum. This allows us to actually see it from Earth with our own eyes, which we hope are protected. The photosphere is 250 miles thick and temperatures rise to 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

In short, though, the Parker Solar Probe may never actually land on our star, an impossible feat. But it will come closer than any previous human-made object, with the hope of revealing some of the Sun's remaining secrets.

“As we get closer and closer to the sun’s surface, we will learn more about the properties of the sun,” Al-Rawafi said in a statement last year. “But such information will improve our knowledge of space weather and our ability to live and work in space.”

The Parker Solar Probe is named after astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who first defined the “solar wind” in 1958. This is the first time a NASA spacecraft has been named after a living person. The spacecraft was launched on August 12, 2018. .

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