EU Sending a Probe To the Sun 160
First time accepted submitter Mindflux0 writes "The European Union is going forward with the proposed Solar Orbiter, a space probe designed to study the sun. The probe will orbit closer to the sun than any other man-made object at a sizzling 42 million km. It's planned to launch in 2017 for close to a billion euros."
OMG! somebody PLEASE tell me! (Score:1)
PLEASE, PLEASE tell me this is a fully manned spaceprobe, manned by politicians and world leaders, to help them become better aquainted with science!
Re:OMG! somebody PLEASE tell me! (Score:5, Funny)
EAT IT, EU! (Score:2, Funny)
right now.
Re: (Score:2)
I knew this would be in here somewhere...
so? (Score:2)
Re:OMG! somebody PLEASE tell me! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Peter Frampton said he wants to go.
I think we should let him.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
and of course lawyers, especially lawyers.
Just half the lawyers (since they do actually serve some useful purposes), with special emphasis on person injury lawyers that advertise on TV.
Re: (Score:2)
I would add patent attorneys to that list too.
2 minutes and 20 seconds from the sun (Score:2)
(42 million kilometers) / the speed of light = 2.33494867 minutes
That's just around 4 times closer to the sun than the Earth is, although I guess the radiation intensity probably increases with the square of the distance or something like that?
At least they should be able to power it with solar panels...
Too much sunlight is as bad as too little... (Score:5, Interesting)
At least they should be able to power it with solar panels...
Actually, powering a probe close to the sun with solar panels is a significant difficulty, since photovoltaic cells perform poorly when they get hot; high temperatures also degrade the lifetime. The European mission will be taking a lot of steps to decrease the intensity on the solar arrays. It's a much worse problem with Solar Probe Plus, which is going much closer. For SPP, designing a power system that works at distances close to the sun was the key enabling element in the mission design. We will be using concentrator solar cells, operating them off-angle, and, for the part of the orbit closest to the sun, actually cooling the arrays with a pumped-fluid cooling loop to reject heat to radiators that are shaded from the sun.
Re: (Score:1)
actually cooling the arrays with a pumped-fluid cooling loop to reject heat to radiators that are shaded from the sun.
Isn't that, well, kind of obvious? How else would one cool anything in space? I'm rather surprised this hasn't been needed for solar cells already.
Re: (Score:2)
actually cooling the arrays with a pumped-fluid cooling loop to reject heat to radiators that are shaded from the sun.
Isn't that, well, kind of obvious? How else would one cool anything in space? I'm rather surprised this hasn't been needed for solar cells already.
For most applications, the small gain in efficiency from running the cells cooler is not worth the large loss in terms of cost and complexity of pumped cooling loops. For near sun applications, though, it is worth it
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Since sunlight is such a problem can't you just send it at night?
Re: (Score:2)
And what is going to power the cooling system?
You cannot power anything from heat, unless there is a colder place that you can heat up in the process. For example, you can use a steam engine, but you either need to condense the steam back into water (so, a cold place to do that) or bring so much water that it will be enough for the entire time the unit has to stay operational. Oh, and a boiler that can survive the heat and water pressure of being near the sun.
Re: (Score:2)
The 'heat' is the solar radiation heating up what it strikes. That heat will radiate back out into space. Likewise the dark side of the space craft will be close to absolute zero. So there's a quite clear delineation of heat zones.
If the probe orbits the sun and has a long tail radiator that's always in shadow/dark it will have the necessary heat differential needed to produce power.
Re:Too much sunlight is as bad as too little... (Score:5, Informative)
The 'heat' is the solar radiation heating up what it strikes. That heat will radiate back out into space. Likewise the dark side of the space craft will be close to absolute zero.
This is an imperfect understanding of heat and how it works in space. Heat is HARD to get rid of. Very, very, hard. Heat hitting the craft will radiate back into space? Not very efficiently. Radiated energy is about the least effective way to get rid of heat. Very space and mass intensive. The ISS has almost as many square meters of heat radiators as it does solar panels. And the ISS has it easy, with a planetary shadow to work with.
Why is it so hard? Because space isn't cold. The whole 'space-is-barely-above-absolute-zero' thing is technically true and yet wildly inaccurate. Yes, the total amount of energy in a given volume of space is absurdly low. But that's not because the contents are cold. It's because there is nothing there to be measured. Space is a vacuum. As in vacuum thermos. That magical container that keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.
To say that the absolute cold of space will keep things cold implies that there is some cold substance in space that the heat can be transferred to. That simply isn't the case.
The far side of the spacecraft from the sun is going to be exactly the same temperature as the near side because the natural heat conductivity will be orders of magnitude higher than any heat differential caused by radiating heat. Both sides will be baking.
Re: (Score:2)
Yea, while very few people had anything to do with space, there is another way to understand that cooling by radiation is inefficient - the vacuum tube. Notice how big the anode has to be to radiate even a few watts? And the anode (being just a metal plate) can survive few hundred degrees C (and radiation power is proportional to temperature). Yet it is still really big, that's why powerful glass vacuum tubes are big (even more powerful tubes have anode on the outside so you can cool it with air or deionize
Mod Parent +Informative (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Unfair modding down (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That heat will radiate back out into space.
Guess what, the front will radiate back, too.
Any difference in temperature would be purely from the back not being warmed directly by the sun. But how do you efficiently stop heat from propagating through the body of the probe, especially long-term? And remember that radiation takes nowhere near as much heat as sun pumps in...
Re: (Score:3)
Likewise the dark side of the space craft will be close to absolute zero. So there's a quite clear delineation of heat zones.
No, no it will not be close to absolute zero. Conduction will carry the heat from the sun-facing side of the craft to the dark side of the craft -- even if they weren't deliberately using pipes to move heat to the radiator. The craft will reach an equilibrium point that is based on the amount of heat it is absorbing, the size of the radiator, and the amount of blackbody radiation given off at a given temperature of the radiator.
At this distance from the sun, this temperature is going to be rather high.
To
Re: (Score:2)
And what is going to power the cooling system?
We already have heat rejection to deep space. That's the heat sink that will make this work. I imagine (being, of course, too lazy to look up the probe's design) however that they didn't do it because they needed to power the system from Earth to its arrival in this orbit. A thermal-based system would lose more than a factor of 4 in power, while operating in Earth orbit compared to its destination orbit. Solar cell panels that can be varied on how exposed they are to sunlight, could generate as much power i
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, there is: the rest of the universe.
Re: (Score:2)
I've actually made silicon carbide solar cells. They're not very efficient, though. (Bandgap is too wide).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I know you're not referencing Frontier/Elite because in those games the scoop was for picking up hydrogen from gas giants like Jupiter.
Re: (Score:2)
Around 72% of the way to the sun to be more precise.
So it's not like it'll be skimming the surface. But as the radiation decreases with the square of the distance, it should get around 12.7 times as much sunlight as if it was orbiting out here.
42 million km is just inside Mercury's perihelion of 46 million km, by the way.
Re: (Score:1)
(42 million kilometers) / the speed of light = 2.33494867 minutes
That's just around 4 times closer to the sun than the Earth is...
Math. Do you Speak it? There is no such thing as 4 times closer.
It is 1/4th the distance from the sun compared to the earth.
Re: (Score:2)
Math. Do you Speak it? There is no such thing as 4 times closer.
English. Do you speak it? If you're not a native speaker, then it's understandable that you're not familiar with some of the intricacies and oddities of the language, but for fluent speakers of English, there's no trouble parsing phrases such as "twice as short" (means the same as "half as tall"), or "four times closer" ("a quarter the distance"), etc. Just invert the number when you reverse the directional (e.g. from "closer" to "further", "shorter" to "taller", etc).
Re: (Score:2)
Not wishing to add to this fire here, but I think the parent has a valid point.
4x closer, would have me assume the distance x4, is the distance of our planet, relative to the sun... in so many words.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't say or write "1/4th" in English. It's 1/4 or one quarter.
Re: (Score:3)
Actually there is a such a thing as 4 x closer it's just an inaccurate natural language representation of 1/4th the distance. Not everyone uses accuracy and precision in their every day speech as their goal is to communicate general ideas now explain something with technical accuracy. Vernacular do you speak it?
Well that's true except that it is perfectly accurate and precise if you simply understand the idiom. Which of course literalist wanna-be-pedants don't, as they do with so many aspects of language, and act like this means they're smart.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure, but that definition of 'closeness' as 1/distance is implied by the syntax of the sentence using 'times'. If I said I was 3 times closer to something than you, that would mean I was 1/3rd as far. However if I said I was 3m closer to something than you, then in this case "closeness" is "-distance".
Now I'm sounding pedantic, when my point about bringing up pedantry is how rarely it helps when understanding natural language where there are many definitions that must be decided upon by context, not a sin
Re: (Score:2)
There's no ambiguity because the grammar of using "times" or not makes it clear.
But if you'll notice I said "3 times closer to" means "1/3rd as far", because "distant" and "far" are synonyms, as are "closeness" and "nearness", and the two pairs of synonyms are antonyms with each other and it doesn't matter which one you use. It's the grammatical context, not the specific word choice, determining what the relationship is. "x times less" means "1/x times" and "x less" means "-x". That's all there is to it.
It's the ESA not the EU (Score:4, Insightful)
The European Space Agency is quite different than the European Union. It includes Canada for a start...
Re: (Score:3)
Canada is an "associate member". As far as I understand it, that means that ESA and the Canadian Agency cooperate. Also, the EU as a whole is a member.
ESA EU (Score:2)
A number of non-EU, European countries are also members, thank you very much.
Re: (Score:2)
No, the EU "as a whole" is not a member
Yes, it is. [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Way back when, Canada would have been mighty close to Europe, but then the Atlantic was formed when Pangaea broke apart :)
Looks like... (Score:2)
They should call it Ikaros (Score:2)
Out of courtesy, if they dare.
hmm... (Score:2)
They are going to make sure to do this at night, right? It would be too hot for the probe during the day, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
depends on whether poland is in charge.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I wouldn't advise it either if you have some humans on board. They can stand vacuum for about 30 seconds but after that the damage quickly becomes severe and I assume the voyage is a bit longer (since the light needs a couple of minutes).
[/woosh]
Not a record for long! (Score:2)
But it won't be a record for long, since the Solar Probe Plus will be heading to a distance of 8.5 solar radii from the surface of the sun a year later. http://science.nasa.gov/missions/solar-probe/ [nasa.gov]
Take that Rupert! (Score:4, Funny)
First the News of the World, and now this.
Re: (Score:2)
First the News of the World, and now this.
Gosh, I didn't think they had it in them to shoot Rupert Murdoch into the sun.
Re: (Score:2)
First the News of the World, and now this.
Gosh, I didn't think they had it in them to shoot Rupert Murdoch into the sun.
That was the original plan, then we switched vendors and had to fire him into the Dell.
Seems like a foolish way to spend money right now (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
You could also phrase it as follows: Interesting way to invest in your local economy. Trust me, the research alone will get people (certain academics) to move there.
Re:Seems like a foolish way to spend money right n (Score:5, Insightful)
You do realize it that when you spend money it is not incinerated right?
If the EU spends 1 billion or 100 billion they do not have 1 billion less, it is just redistributed differently.
Re: (Score:1)
Isn't that the best proof that Aztecs are extinct? Because otherwise they'd be very busy correcting all those people misunderstanding their calendar.
You forgot option C (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
If you think that this kind of research is done to create jobs you're so wrong you'll need an atlas to get back.
This is expensive and difficult with a massive chance that there will be absolutely no return of any kind (because the probe melts, or the engines misfile and it ends up in the sun rather than going around it or whatever). In other words, this is exactly the type of stuff that private enterprise won't do because the risk vs return is really poor (high risk vs unknown return). So governments get co
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Even in Brave New World (Aldous Huxley) science was top. Granted, it was used in the wrong sort of way, but with knowledge comes responsibility.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Most americans dont know that.
A closer look (Score:2)
I guess they can't see it from here.
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly! Why send a probe to a distance that is not significantly closer to the sun than the earth? They are observing visible light, ultraviolet and X-rays, which could be observed from the earth or from an earth orbit.
First, you get more detail if you're close. Second, they'll also be making in situ particle and magnetic measurements and those you can't get any other way. Right now, we've got lots of conjecture about what's going on in the heliosphere close to the sun, but damn little actual data; some things you can only measure by getting an instrument to the location, other things could theoretically be measured remotely but practically can't because the instruments would be overwhelmed by the friendly local star. Wit
Re: (Score:1)
The resolution difference is like seeing the same movie in 1080p instead of 303p. If you don't see the difference, you should contact an optician. :-)
Re: (Score:1)
If you take three pictures, you can process them into one. Out information processing technology is progressing much faster than our physical science.
If so, then if you take three pictures from closer up, you'll also be able to process them into one, getting even larger resolution. Also, for fast processes the three pictures may show a significantly different situation exactly at the most interesting place (namely where the fast change happens), making the processing into one impossible.
42 million km? (Score:2)
Sounds like a Disaster Area waiting to happen.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh c'mon, someone tell me they got that!
Re: (Score:2)
Only if it crashes into the sun and causes it to explode for no adequately explored reason.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe the sun is made of the same stuff everything in Michael Bay movies is made of! Has anyone checked this!? 8-(
Re: (Score:2)
Micheal Bay can come up with one and overly explore it.
They're sending it at night (Score:2)
They're sending it at night to avoid heat issues.
Re: (Score:1)
Didn't see yours when Iposted mine :-/
They should send it at night (Score:1)
when the sun is turned off.
NASA has already done it (Score:1)
Any astro-thermophysicists? (Score:2)
At that distance, what would the estimated temp be in space?
More for my own curiosity, but the tech needed to survive a constant furnace/radiation bomb is also very cool.
Re: (Score:2)
Not an astro-thermophysicist, but I'd guess that the vacuum of space in that area would be near absolute zero. Now the suns radiation hitting mass would probably generate a large amount of heat.
Sun Diving? (Score:1)
Hold on... (Score:2)
42 million kilometers...
42... something's afoot...
Re: (Score:2)
They need to include Obama and all the Congresspeople on that journey.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They can borrow it from the Chinese like everyone else.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They can borrow it from the Chinese like everyone else.
Yes, but the Chinese are wary of Greeks bearing Gilts.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But will their hot air be enough to offset all the crap they are full of?
Re: (Score:1)
Can they also send all of congress from the USA as well?
Honestly, it would increase the average IQ of america by 80 points if we sent all the american politicians.
Re: (Score:2)
I used to think that the politicians in my country were stupid too, but then I realized - they are not. I think the same applies to the US as well.
The politician has managed to get to a position of power in the first place (not everybody can). He manages to use this power to fill his pocket in such a way that is not entirely illegal (but most likely immoral), or at least manages to pay off certain people to make his way legal or look the other way.
So, politicians are not stupid, they are intelligent selfish
Re: (Score:1)
Ethically serving their client means doing EVERYTHING legally possible to further your client's position.
Do you even know what being ethical means? In short it's knowing when to tell your client "No, I won't do this for you even if you fire me"
Re: (Score:1)
Politicians generally aren't stupid. In the US most of Federal elected officials were at one point lawyers. Once you understand that their behavior becomes much easier to understand.
Lawyers are trained in law and ethics, specifically how to ethically serve their client. Ethically serving their client means doing EVERYTHING legally possible to further your client's position. Who are politician's clients? Their campaign donors. Shitty politician behavior explained by the 'ethics' training they get being turned into lawyers. It also seems self evident that lawyers shouldn't be making laws. Talk about having the foxes guard the hen house.
How Lawful Evil of them.
Re: (Score:2)
Technically, it would lower their IQ. The IQ scale is based on an average, so getting rid of dumb people will increase the level of intelligence needed to reach the 100 mark, lowering everyone's numerical scores.
Re: (Score:1)
The "eurocrats" tend to be fairly reasonable compared to the "member-state-crats".
Besides this, the article is wrong, it is not the EU that is sending the probe, it is the ESA which is a separate entity and international organisation.
Re: (Score:2)
They had better find a way to name this probe ASH because in the end that's what it'll be.
I hear that they are avoiding the problem of too much heat by sending it there at night... :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Just in case you aren't joking (hauling heavy nuclear waste into space would cost a metric shit-ton of money, even by space travel standards), that would be a dumb thing to do. Nuclear waste can either be re-used, or if completely depleted, used where ultra-hard/heavy metals are needed (like armor and ammo...not the most desirable use, but those are the most common applications).