NASA Plans Probe to the Sun

FudRucker writes "For more than 400 years, astronomers have studied the sun from afar. Now NASA has decided to go there. 'We are going to visit a living, breathing star for the first time,' says program scientist Lika Guhathakurta of NASA Headquarters. 'This is an unexplored region of the solar system and the possibilities for discovery are off the charts.'"

Wait. I saw this...

[baldass_newbie]

Airplane 2.

"Bend over..."

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

"This won't hurt you as much as it hurts me!"

Don't worry NASA is not stupid.

[goombah99]

NASA knows the probe will burn up in the sun, so that's why they plan to land it at night.

Re:

[MikeDirnt69]

You're wrong. They will do during the next full eclipse.

Re:

[street struttin']

A quick impression of the first man to ever land on the sun: "Ow, ow! Shit, FUCK! It's HOT!"

Re:Don't worry NASA is not stupid.

[Monkey Angst]

Oh for fuck's sake... for some reason, this thread has brought out some of the most malfunctioning humor sensors Slashdot has to offer. It always happens during a full sun.

Re:there's no night on the sun

[goombah99]

so that's why they plan to land it at night.

Day and night is caused by the rotation of the Earth.

rotation, shmotation. As anyone who's ever looked at the sun knows. the sun is roughly the size of a 50 cent piece and at night it comes to rest somewhere out west, probably arizona. Or so Calvin's dad told me

Re:there's no night on the sun

[ScrewMaster]

I can see that this topic is going to spark some heated debate.

Re:there's no night on the sun

[Kagura]

Stolen from a webpage (http://chrisdamato.blogspot.com/2007/03/ask-calvins-dad.html) from someone who stole them from someone who stole them from Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson.

Illustrating the value of a good explanation in science education!

Calvin: Why does the sun set?
Dad: It's because hot air rises. The sun's hot in the middle of the day, so it rises high in the sky. In the evening then, it cools down and sets.
Calvin: Why does it go from east to west?
Dad: Solar wind.

Calvin: Why does the sky turn red as the sun sets?
Dad: That's all the oxygen in the atmosphere catching fire.
Calvin: Where does the sun go when it sets?
Dad: The sun sets in the west. In Arizona actually, near Flagstaff. That's why the rocks there are so red.
Calvin: Don't the people get burned up?
Dad: No, the sun goes out as it sets. That's why it's dark at night.
Calvin: Doesn't the sun crush the whole state as it lands?
Dad: Ha ha, of course not. Hold a quarter up. See, the sun's just about the same size.
Calvin: I thought I read that the sun was really big.
Dad: You can't believe everything you read, I'm afraid.

Calvin: How come old photographs are always black and white? Didn't they have color film back then?
Dad: Sure they did. In fact, those old photographs are in color. It's just that the world was black and white then. The world didn't turn color until sometime in the 1930s, and it was pretty grainy color for a while, too.
Calvin: But then why are old paintings in color?! If the world was black and white, wouldn't artists have painted it that way?
Dad: Not necessarily. A lot of great artists were insane.
Calvin: But... But how could they have painted in color anyway? Wouldn't their paints have been shades of gray back then?
Dad: Of course, but they turned colors like everything else did in the '30s.
Calvin: So why didn't old black and white photos turn color too?
Dad: Because they were color pictures of black and white, remember?

Calvin: Dad, will you explain the theory of relativity to me? I don't understand why time goes slower at great speed.
Dad: It's because you keep changing time zones. See, if you fly to California, you gain three hours on a five-hour flight, right? So if you go at the speed of light, you gain more time, because it doesn't take as long to get there. Of course, the theory of relativity only works if you're going west.

Calvin: Why do my eyes shut when I sneeze?
Dad: If your lids weren't closed, the force of the explosion would blow your eyeballs out and stretch the optic nerve, so your eyes would flop around and you'd have to point them with your hands to see anything.

Calvin: How do bank machines work?
Dad: Well, let's say you want 25 dollars. You punch in the amount and behind the machine there's a guy with a printing press who makes the money and sticks it out this slot.
Calvin: Sort of like the guy who lives up in our garage and opens the door?
Dad: Exactly.

Calvin: What causes the wind?
Dad: Trees sneezing.

Calvin: Why does ice float?
Dad: Because it's cold. Ice wants to get warm, so it goes to the top of liquids to be nearer to the sun.
Calvin: Is that true?
Dad: Look it up and find out.
Calvin: I should just look up stuff in the first place.

Calvin: How come you know so much?
Dad: It's all in the book you get when you become a father.

Re:there's no night on the sun

[Gilmoure]

I don't feel myself rotating.

Re:

[Tango42]

How have you not heard that joke before?

Okay?

[Drakin020]

And how exactly do you plan to do that? Do we have any material that won't melt under the intense heat?

Re:Okay?

[CyprusBlue113]

It's easy, we'll just go at night

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

My first thought when I saw the headline was "look for the setup and deliver the old joke". Apparently I wasn't the only one thinking like that. Well done to both of you (I'm pretty sure the setup was intentional).

There's a better way!

[Xenographic]

Pffft. Everyone knows you should use metaphasic shielding [memory-alpha.org].

Re:Okay?

[Creepy Crawler]

One could dissipate heat by having hundreds of monofilament wires to wick the heat away from such craft. Doing that should provide more time for the sensor array to gather and transmit more data.

Of course, we could select Tom Cruise and other scientologists as crew.

Re:Okay?

[CogDissident]

wick the heat "where"? The area around the sun is "all" over several thousand degrees, the size of those wires would have to be measured in hundreds of miles.

It's not the heat, it's the humidity.

[Bearpaw]

Seriously, though, it's not quite that simple. "The area around the sun" is very hot, but it's not very dense. IANAThermalEngineer, but I imagine they have one or two at NASA, and I'm guessing that they can come up with some kind of effective radiative cooling system. (Though perhaps they'll just rely on a Thermal Protective System (aka "heat shield"), like they did for the original Solar Probe [nasa.gov].)

Re:

[Bryansix]

Can we vote that you join the crew too for having that stupid signature. (Note: No I didn't click it)

Re:

[countSudoku()]

Before you get modded Off-Topic, I'll say the links are funny and clever. Glad you weren't fooled by them too! ;) I used to pull that stunt all the time in an old vBull forum I haunted. Just build a cool looking, dare-you-not-to-click-me front end to the logout link. Simple *and* funny. It's worth it just to have one stupid person accidentally log out. Imagine a world like that...

And to be on-topic:

Three words: giant oven mitts!

Great Presidential Speeches

[rumblin'rabbit]

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal of landing a man on the Sun and returning him back safely to the earth.

George W. Bush, June 2008

Re:Okay?

[Eudial]

And how exactly do you plan to do that? Do we have any material that won't melt under the intense heat?

It isn't that hot. The surface is merely 5800 K. We achieve and contain that sort of temperature on a regular basis here on earth.

The problem isn't to contain such a temperature, but to do it in a way that is compatible with space travel (i.e. not involving heavy and brittle insulation.)

Re:

[A beautiful mind]

We just have to invent the forcefield.

Re:Okay?

[e2d2]

Yes the surface is only around 5800K, hot enough to melt any known material. But the corona surrounding the surface is over 10^6K. I'm curious how they intend to handle such intense energy. Not just heat energy, but insane amounts of radiation across the spectrum. This will be quite interesting from an engineering standpoint.

Re:Okay?

[Timothy Brownawell]

Since the corona isn't dense enough for the heat to be a problem, all they have to worry about is the radiation. Since that's all coming from the same direction, they can just hide behind something (the thing labeled "thermal shield" in the picture).

That doesn't really answer the question

[p3d0]

The mission is 7 years long. In that time, wouldn't the heat shield reach thermal equilibrium, and become extremely hot itself, if not melt?

Maybe they're just not going as close as we all think.

Re:That doesn't really answer the question

[Timothy Brownawell]

The mission is 7 years long. In that time, wouldn't the heat shield reach thermal equilibrium, and become extremely hot itself, if not melt?

Sure. At a distance of 9 solar radii (closest approach, per article) the sun covers (area of circle) / (surface of sphere 9x as big) = 1/(4*9^2) of the sky. For radiative equilibrium, the relative temperature will be the fourth root of that, or about .236 of the temperature of the sun (6000 C). That comes to 1416 C, which is remarkably close to the 1400 C the article says the heat shield will have to withstand.

Re:Okay?

[suggsjc]

Ugh, I barely like corona when it is ice cold...that has got to taste awful.

But I guess if they can figure out how to bottle it and get it back to earth, then I guess that will change the whole "free as in beer" saying.

Re:Okay?

[apoc.famine]

Not to inject off-topic facts into this discussion, (ok, I can't resist it) but Corona is one of the worst beers ever.

You see, there are three major things (aside from frat boys) which ruin beer: heat, (not too hard to work around) oxygen, and light.

Corona is in a clear bottle in a low six-pack, with a twist-top. The twist-top is far worse at sealing out oxygen, the low cardboard lets in more light, and the clear bottle lets in even more.

How do you fix these problems? Jack it full of preservatives, and then market the culture of the beer to revolve around adding some citric acid to hide that shitty taste. Compare Corona against a well crafted, all natural ale, and most people can taste the shite in it. For instance, try really seriously comparing Corona against a good Belgian white ale. The taste difference is amazing.

God I've turned into a beer snob. Hand-crafted Belgian ales ftw.

Re:

[LWATCDR]

The other problem is how to cool the probe. No matter how well you insulate the probe it will very quickly over heat because there is no way to dump the heat the probe it's self generates.
Stick any electronics into a sealed well insulated case and see just how long it stays running.

Re:Okay?

[ahecht]

But they're not entering the corona. From TFA:

At closest approach, Solar Probe+ will be 7 million km or 9 solar radii from the sun. There, the spacecraft's carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures greater than 1400o C and survive blasts of radiation at levels not experienced by any previous spacecraft.

I'm not saying 1400 degrees isn't hot, but it's not unmanagable.

Re:

[Original Replica]

Not just heat energy, but insane amounts of radiation across the spectrum.

The tech they develop for radiation protection for this sun probe should be a great asset for any man on Mars mission. Cosmic radiation and solar storms will be as major hurdle to extended manned space missions outside of earth's magnetosphere. I should hope that the solar probe has magnetic shielding, just to get a high stress test of tech.

Re:Okay?

[Thelasko]

I should hope that the solar probe has magnetic shielding, just to get a high stress test of tech.

Magnetic shielding would be advantageous. Especially since the majority of the particles coming from the sun appear to be charged. However, the objectives of the mission state that it intends to study magnetic fields and the charged particles from the sun. These objectives would be difficult to meet with magnetic shielding.

Plus, it wasn't mentioned in TFA.

Re:

[Thelasko]

My guess is that the Venus flybys are the answer. They fly the probe into the shadow of Venus and get it cold (remember only radiation transfers heat in space so the shade of Venus should be very cold). Then the probe points it's heat shield at the sun and makes a pass to collect data. Remember, heat transfer is not instantaneous. Because it's 10^6K outside does not mean it's instantly 10^6K inside. It simply means that the time it takes to reach, for example, 5800K is shorter than the time it would ta

Spend years behind Venus?

[Moraelin]

Saying that the shade of Venus is very cold, paints a rather mis-leading picture. It's not the same thing as staying in, say, really cold air. As you say, only radiation transfers heat in space, so _all_ the cooling effect you're going to get is whatever the craft radiates. That's not very much. It also depends of the fourth square of temperature, as per Steffan-Boltzman, it's a lot harder to lose the last (or next to last) 10% than it is to lose the first 10%.

But more importantly, you start gaining it righ

Re:

[gardyloo]

except while the temperature of the corona is about 6-10 orders of magnitude higher than a typical (terrestrial) flame, the density is a couple of hundred orders of magnitude lower than that flame.

I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:

[Felgerkarb]

As mentioned before, the corona is much much hotter than the surface. But still not an issue in this case. From the FTA:

"At closest approach, Solar Probe+ will be 7 million km or 9 solar radii from the sun. There, the spacecraft's carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures greater than 1400o C and survive blasts of radiation at levels not experienced by any previous spacecraft."

Still lots of engineering issues, though.

Re:Okay?

[Wandering Wombat]

No, what we need is some sort of material that can reflect away the radiation, and also has a ridiculously high specific heat. Hmmm, what could we use to reflect electromagnetic radiation... hmmm, something reflective... what do have that's reflective? Anyone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:TPScube.jpg [wikipedia.org]

Re:Okay?

[Zymergy]

No. Not Really.
And certainly not at the temperature of the Sun's corona (which probes will most likely have to travel through to get to the inner 'cooler' layers..)
This is where we need 'shielding' technology similar to Star Trek, or to jump physical dimensions directly into the desired location with technology similar to Event Horizon, etc..

"The coolest layer of the Sun is a temperature minimum region about 500 km above the photosphere, with a temperature of about 4,000 K." ... "Above the temperature minimum layer is a thin layer about 2,000 km thick, dominated by a spectrum of emission and absorption lines. It is called the chromosphere..." ... "Above the chromosphere is a transition region in which the temperature rises rapidly from around 100,000 K to coronal temperatures closer to one million K." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun [wikipedia.org]

"The chemical element with the highest melting point is tungsten, at 3695 K (3422 C, 6192 F) making it excellent for use as filaments in light bulbs. The often-cited carbon does not melt at ambient pressure but sublimates at about 4000 K; a liquid phase only exists above pressures of 10 MPa and estimated 4300-4700 K. Tantalum hafnium carbide (Ta4HfC5) is a refractory compound with a very high melting point of 4488 K (4215 C, 7619 F)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melting_point [wikipedia.org]
Even diamonds are not tough enough... Above 1700 C (1973 K / 3583 F) diamonds are converted into graphite.

Re:Okay?

[Firehed]

Even diamonds are not tough enough... Above 1700 C (1973 K / 3583 F) diamonds are converted into graphite.

I guess I need to buy a pack of pencils and throw them in the freezer. I'll be rich overnight!

Re:

[merreborn]

Even diamonds are not tough enough... Above 1700 C (1973 K / 3583 F) diamonds are converted into graphite.

But, diamond is one of the hardest metals (If not THE hardest metal) known the man!

Re:

[HighOrbit]

How about layering? Each layer will eventually fail and burn off as it passes through the corona, but it would buy time for the layers beneath. Since you would be traveling at increadible speeds, you would only have to buy a finite amount of time before you reached the lower cooler surface zone. It would be quite bulky, but could be assembled in orbit.

Re:

[k33l0r]

RTFA.

"At closest approach, Solar Probe+ will be 7 million km or 9 solar radii from the sun. There, the spacecraft's carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures greater than 1400 degrees C and survive blasts of radiation at levels not experienced by any previous spacecraft."

Re:

[Kingrames]

No, just a big heatsink.

Re:

[merreborn]

And how exactly do you plan to do that? Do we have any material that won't melt under the intense heat?

From TFA:

At closest approach, Solar Probe+ will be 7 million km or 9 solar radii from the sun. There, the spacecraft's carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures greater than 1400 C

In short: don't get close enough to melt.

Re:Okay?

[treeves]

This should not be modded informative. Please. A nuclear reactor (I assume you mean fission not fusion since that is the usual meaning of reactor) core does not get hot enough to melt the fuel - if it did, you must mean Chernobyl so you should have been more specific. The surface of the Sun is at a much higher temperature than the melting point of any material.

Can we

[Diss Champ]

select a few of our favorite people as crew for that mission?

Re:Can we

[pak9rabid]

select a few of our favorite people as crew for that mission?

I have just the people [wikipedia.org]

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

This would be a good time for all of the ensigns wearing red uniforms to hide.

Sweet!!

[porkUpine]

I volunteer my boss to be the first asshole on the sun!

Solar Power

[Drakin020]

I guess providing power to the device via solar power would be a good option.

After all...It will be right next to the source.

Re:Solar Power

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't work, since (as many posts point out) they'll have to send it at night...

Re:

[bugnuts]

Solar power is green and all, but I'm really concerned about the environmental damage if it crashes.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Oblig. Mr. Burns

[Anonymous Coward]

Smithers: Well, Sir, you've certainly vanquished all your enemies: the Elementary School, the local tavern, the old age home...you must be very proud.

Burns: No, not while my greatest nemesis still provides our customers with free light, heat and energy. I call this enemy...the sun.
Since the beginning of time man has yearned to destroy the sun. I will do the next best thing...block it out!

replete...

[rodney dill]

Solar Probe+'s repeated plunges into the corona will be accomplished by means of Venus flybys.

...with sexual connotations.

Pack the sun cream..

[slashmojo]

SPF Eleventy Million

Think, then open mouth

[orclevegam]

'We are going to visit a living, breathing star for the first time,'

As opposed to all those dead stars we've been visiting recently.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the Earth IS "dead" stardust, and so are you!

Cemetary to the Stars

[Stanistani]

He's obviously a big fan of Forest Lawn [forestlawn.com].

Re:

[mshannon78660]

Well, Jupiter is better described as a 'stillborn' star, rather than a dead star, but we have indeed visited it. Had its mass been a little higher (roughly 13 times what it is), it would be classified as a brown dwarf [wikipedia.org]

off the charts

[bsDaemon]

I would imagine most things would be, as I strongly suspect the charts to burn up prior to impact.

Living and breathing?

[CheeseTroll]

One could say the sun is exhaling, but what's it inhaling?

Re:

[Farmer Tim]

what's it inhaling?

Anything that gets too close. Gravity is a harsh mistress.

Re:Living and breathing?

[eln]

Apparently a NASA spacecraft soon.

wait!

[nguy]

They ought to wait for the development of the metaphasic shield [memory-alpha.org] in 2369.

Oblig.

[Khyber]

"That's hot!"

Bad project name

[Chemisor]

With NASA's record, they ought to have named this project "Icarus", 'cause that's what will happen to it.

Re:Bad project name

[CheeseTroll]

Naming it 'Daedalus' would be more optimistic, don't you think?

Either way, hopefully they won't build the heat shield out of wax!

Re:

[CarlosHawes]

"Icarus" was the name of the spacecraft sent to kick start the sun with a massive nuclear device in the 2007 film "Sunshine" (EXCELLENT movie INHO). At the risk of spoilers, let's just say that all kinds of things go wrong :)

Re:Bad project name

[flosofl]

Of course, originally, Icarus was the name of a certain Greek god...

No, Icarus was not a god. He was the son of Daedalus. Daedalus was an artificer (engineer) who designed the maze in which the Minotaur was imprisoned. Basically a prisoner of the king of Minos, he fashioned two sets of wooden frames to which he attached feathers with beeswax for himself and his son to escape. Daedalus escaped, but despite multiple warnings, Icarus flew too close to Apollo's chariot (the sun), melted the wax and plunged to his death.

Name

[proxima]

The name of the mission is Solar Probe+; I can't decide whether a name like Icarus would be more appropriate. Then again, naming your project after something that burns up might not be the best idea.

Of course, when the mission is done I would expect them to send the craft into the sun.

Predicted probe results:

[snarfies]

1) The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
2) A gigantic nuclear furnace, where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.
3) The sun is hot - the sun it not a place where we can live, but here on Earth there'd be no life without the light it gives.

isn't the corona really hot?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I know the surface is like 6000C or so, but I thought the corona was in the millions of degrees. I don't see how they'd get anything close enough to it before the corona vapourised it.

If you go here [hypertextbook.com]

there's this data:

"Gas particles in the corona can reach temperatures of up to 1,700,000 ÂC"

- Prentice Hall Earth Science. Engelwood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1987: 73.

So wouldn't that tend to prevent anything man made from getting near the sun, much less its "surface" / chromosphere?

RS

Re:isn't the corona really hot?

[Timothy Brownawell]

I know the surface is like 6000C or so, but I thought the corona was in the millions of degrees. I don't see how they'd get anything close enough to it before the corona vapourised it.

If you go here [hypertextbook.com]

[snip]

So wouldn't that tend to prevent anything man made from getting near the sun, much less its "surface" / chromosphere?

RS

From your own link: Though the corona's temperature is high it's molecules are so far apart that the gases release little heat. If a person were to stand on the sun's corona they wouldn't burn, they would freeze in the near vacuum of the corona.

Re:

[NeoSkandranon]

What about radiant heat?

Re:

[camperdave]

And it radiates via what medium?

Infrared photons would be my guess, just like most radiant heat.

Re:isn't the corona really hot?

[amliebsch]

And it radiates via what medium?

Luminiferous aether, of course. Ask a silly question...

Re:

[swimsaturn]

Though the corona's temperature is high it's molecules are so far apart that the gases release little heat. If a person were to stand on the sun's corona they wouldn't burn, they would freeze in the near vacuum of the corona.
Oh, they'd burn alright - but it would be a really bad tan. The side facing the Sun would absorb insane amounts of radiation; the side facing away would freeze... A good example (though far away from the corona): the extreme surface temperatures of Mercury, depending on the amount o

Re:

[frogzilla]

The particles have a high temperature (are moving quickly) but the particle density is low. Therefore the heat will be small. Heat is the flow of energy from a hotter body to a cooler body.

Re:

[Firehed]

That's a 21-year-old textbook. I think it's had plenty of time to cool off.

Typical Government waste

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

The scientists and astrophysicists themselves agree that the Sun is going to become a Red Giant and it will expand past the orbit of Jupiter. Instead of just setting up the instruments and wait for the Sun to come to us, these typical, arrogant, pie-in-the-sky, ivory tower, disconnected elites are coming up with yet another proposal to tax and spend out tax dollars. Enough!. Just wait. What is 5 billion years to a government program? I ask.

Re:Typical Government waste

[rworne]

What is 5 billion years to a government program? I ask.

Ahead of schedule?

Well, at least they didn't name the spacecraft...

[GeneralEmergency]

...Icarus.

But I bet it was suggested repeatedly.

Water on the sun?

[tensop]

In the news: "NASA Scientists discover trace possibilities of water on the sun, 3 more trips planned"

"Since the beginning of time..."

[Bohnanza]

"...man has yearned to destroy the sun"

Generations!

[IronMagnus]

..just don't put any trilithium on it k?

Speech by first plankton on the sun:

[Björn]

"It's a great honor and privilege for us to be here representing not only our own wave, but plankton of peace of all waves, plankton with interest and curiosity and plankton with vision for the future."

-- John Sladek, The Müller-Fokker Effect. (A very funny SF book)

Soundtrack

[Farmer Tim]

Fortunately, the incidental music [ufoseries.com] has already been written.

Results

[sgilti]

"I'm sorry NASA, but the Princess is in another solar system."

I'll tell you where you can stick that probe!

[gsgriffin]

I guess they decided to stick that probe where the sun does shine...call the probe the Enimator?

Poorly titled article...

[callinyouin]

Should have been named "NASA Plans to get Hott".
Yeah.
That would have grabbed my attention. Hott... with 2 t's.

On a serious note, I hope this will be a manned mission?

"Sunshine" 2007 scifi movie about traveling to Sun

[peter303]

The recent science fiction movie Sunshine described taking a special spacecraft close to the Sun. The premise of the movie and final resolution were bogus to me. However the issues of near solar travel and the special effects were interesting.

What about Uranus?

[DnemoniX]

You can't have a good story about probing without mention of Uranus...

Obligatory Star Trek reference

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

Awesome, it's Earth's first Class 4 probe [memory-alpha.org].

Last transmission from the probe ...

[I don't want to spen]

My God, It's full of star

Too bad, in a way

[ciaohound]

If they were, we wouldn't have to read through all these lame jokes about "doing it at night."

Re:

[Bryansix]

As previously noted it will be a manned mission with Tom Cruise being the only crew.

Re:

[suggsjc]

Well, if you want to man this mission then I for one don't see any problem with it.

I'd pack some really good sun screen.

Have you tasted Tang?

[Bearpaw]

It's not exactly a technological advance worth bragging about. It's a little like orange juice, except it's not as good for you and it tastes like android piss. Woo-hoo.