NASA Probe Travels Faster Than Any Manmade Object in History

What Happened?

NASA announced the Parker Solar Probe survived a near approach to the sun. It traveled through the sun’s corona to get within 3.8 million miles of the solar surface.

Using the sun’s gravity to assist, the probe also reached speeds in excess of 430,000 miles per hour. That makes it the fasted manmade object in history.

NASA reported Friday morning the probe ‘transmitted a beacon tone back to Earth indicating it’s in good health and operating normally.’

Nicola Fox, leader of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate made a public statement saying:

‘We sent something closer to the Sun than any other human-made object has ever gone — and it survived. Now I have to be patient while we get the data downloaded and analyze it over the next few months to better understand our star and how it affects space weather.’

Why it Matters

According to the Washington Post:

‘Parker Solar Probe is braving one of the most extreme environments in our solar system, said project scientist Nour Rawafi of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which built and operates the spacecraft. This bold mission of exploration is bringing us closer than ever to unlocking the sun’s deepest mysteries.’

One of those mysteries is why the sun’s corona is so much hotter than the rest of the sun. Data gathered from the Parker Solar Probe could provide new insights into answering that question.

NASA’s website explained:

‘Close to the Sun, the spacecraft relies on a carbon foam shield to protect it from the extreme heat in the upper solar atmosphere called the corona, which can exceed 1 million degrees Fahrenheit. The shield was designed to reach temperatures of 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit — hot enough to melt steel — while keeping the instruments behind it shaded at a comfortable room temperature. In the hot but low-density corona, the spacecraft’s shield is expected to warm to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.’

In a later statement NASA also said, ‘By flying through the solar corona, Parker Solar Probe can take measurements that help scientists better understand how the region gets so hot, trace the origin of the solar wind (a constant flow of material escaping the Sun), and discover how energetic particles are accelerated to half the speed of light.’

How it Affects You

Solar activity can directly affect the performance of satellite communications which have become widely utilized by private industry, governments, and military forces around the world.

A better understanding of how the sun functions could provide improved advance warnings for solar events and prevent communications disruptions here on Earth.

Joe Westlake, the Director of Heliophysics at NASA, said ‘The data that will come down from the spacecraft will be fresh information about a place that we, as humanity, have never been, it’s an amazing accomplishment.’