Space Solar System
Launched 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
Inching Closer to Our Solar System’s Source Photograph: parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu
In a first and historic feat, a spacecraft has reached the Sun By Ayushee Chaudhary Space exploration is expanding the envelope like never before as humanity continues to reach farther and farther into the space. This time the destination being the centre of our solar system, the Sun. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)’s Parker Solar Probe managed to fly through the Sun’s upper atmosphere – the corona. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe was launched to space in August 2018. Three years after launch and decades after first conception, Parker finally reached. It has become the closest-ever spacecraft to the Sun. Loaded with scientific instruments to measure the environment around the spacecraft, Parker Solar Probe has completed three
22
ISSUE 12 • 2021
of 24 planned passes through never-before-explored parts of the Sun’s atmosphere, the corona. Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA’s Living with a Star programme to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. The findings shared by Parker will aid scientists in coming closer to answering fundamental questions about the physics of our star. They also reveal new information about the behavior of the material and particles that speed away from the Sun. In the quest to protect astronauts and technology in space, the information Parker has uncovered about how the Sun constantly ejects material and energy will help scientists re-write
www.sps-aviation.com
