Space travel Probe comes closer to the sun than ever before at Christmas
A space probe is flying through the sun's atmosphere just in time for Christmas. It comes closer to the sun than any man-made object before.
23.12.2024, 08:21
SDA
According to calculations by the US space agency NASA, its probe "Parker Solar Probe" will come within around six million kilometers of the surface of the sun.
The rendezvous of the probe and the sun on December 24 at around 13:00 CET could not be noticed by anyone at first, "as we have no radio contact with the probe at this time," says astrophysicist Volker Bothmer from the University of Göttingen. The research team is only expecting a signal on the night of December 27 - if all goes well. "Then the probe will send a sign of life to Earth." This would be done via a short autonomous radio signal - comparable to the flashing of a lighthouse.
First data at the end of January
The first data will not be available until the end of January, when the probe's main antenna points towards Earth. "But it will take several years until we have evaluated and understood all the data." Bothmer is leading the German participation in the mission and, among other things, helped develop its concept and a wide-angle camera.
The probe, which is the size of a small car, has a speed of around 690,000 kilometers per hour at its planned closest point to the sun and can withstand temperatures of around 1,000 degrees Celsius, writes Nasa. It would therefore fly faster than any other man-made object to date. However, if its 11.4-centimetre-thick carbon heat shield is only slightly displaced, a large part of the instruments, including the camera developed with German help, will burn up, according to Bothmer.
Among other things, the researchers expect to find out why the sun's outer atmosphere is many times hotter than its surface and therefore also how the atmospheres of other stars work. "We don't know exactly what Christmas presents the sun will give us," says Bothmer. But he is expecting surprises. There are numerous questions: How are the solar currents generated in its atmosphere? How do solar winds or solar storms develop?
Birth region of the solar wind
The "Parker Solar Probe" is not the first man-made visitor to the sun: the German-American probes "Helios 1" and "Helios 2" were launched back in the 1970s, but at around 45 million kilometers they kept a suitable distance from the heat ball.
Launched in August 2018, the 700-kilogram "Parker Solar Probe" orbits the sun on highly elliptical orbits and therefore alternately passes close to and far from the sun. During its first flyby in October 2018, it came closer to the sun than any other spacecraft before at 42.7 million kilometers, according to NASA.
In 2021, it became the first probe to fly through the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere - known as the corona. "For the first time in history, a space probe has touched the sun," wrote NASA at the time. In 2023, it even came within just over 7 million kilometers of the surface of the sun.
According to Bothmer, the proximity of around six million kilometers means an even deeper dive into the sun's corona. "This will give us data from areas of the sun's atmosphere that have never been seen before. At this proximity, we will be in the birth regions of the solar wind and solar storms."
For comparison: the Earth is on average around 150 million kilometers away from the sun, while the closest planet to the sun, Mercury, is around 58 million kilometers away.
