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NASA Earth

NASA To Make Announcement About First Mission To Touch Sun (nasa.gov) 85

Posted by msmash from the way-to-go dept.
NASA published the following media advisory moments ago: NASA will make an announcement about the agency's first mission to fly directly into our sun's atmosphere during an event at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 31, from the University of Chicago's William Eckhardt Research Center Auditorium. The event will air live on NASA Television and the agency's website. The mission, Solar Probe Plus, is scheduled to launch in the summer of 2018. Placed in orbit within four million miles of the sun's surface, and facing heat and radiation unlike any spacecraft in history, the spacecraft will explore the sun's outer atmosphere and make critical observations that will answer decades-old questions about the physics of how stars work. The resulting data will improve forecasts of major space weather events that impact life on Earth, as well as satellites and astronauts in space.
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NASA To Make Announcement About First Mission To Touch Sun More

NASA To Make Announcement About First Mission To Touch Sun

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  • Plot twist: (Score:5, Funny)

    by skirmish666 ( 1287122 ) on Friday May 26, 2017 @03:18PM (#54493797)
    They're going at night?

    • They're going at night?

      From TFS: first mission to fly directly into our sun's atmosphere during an event at 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday, May 31

      11am is not "at night".

      • That's the time of the official announcement of the mission, not the launch or arrival.

        They'll time the arrival for night to mitigate heating issues, obviously.

      • 11am where you live is likely to be night where I live. Maybe they are launching from a space center near me?

      • NASA will make an announcement about the agency's first mission to fly directly into our sun's atmosphere during an event at 11 a.m EDT Wednesday, May 31, from the University of Chicago's William Eckhardt Research Center Auditorium

        I didn't realize NASA had a launch platform at Chicago's William Eckhardt Research Center Auditorium either, thanks for clearing that up!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by haruchai ( 17472 )

      They're going at night?

      North Korea already accomplished this years ago.
      All Hail our Dear Flattop Leader

    • Don't be an idiot. Even at night the sun is extremely hot. They'll wait for a solar eclipse.

  • Solar Probe Plus? Name Botch! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RavenLrD20k ( 311488 ) on Friday May 26, 2017 @03:23PM (#54493837) Journal
    Project Icarus. This needs to be called Project Icarus.

  • Does he have a nice butt or what?

    Oh you mean THE sun, as in our star... if you leave out the "the" it changes the meaning.

    • Maybe to pedantic nitwits.

      The rest of us understand such concepts as "context" and "title brevity".

  • "Touch" the Sun? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by sanosuke001 ( 640243 ) on Friday May 26, 2017 @03:25PM (#54493867)
    It isn't going to touch the Sun; it won't get anywhere near the surface... still cool nonetheless.

    • Protons will leave the Sun and touch it though.

    • Touch, no, unless they mean the Sun's residue particles.

      Cool? No way. We are at about 94 million miles from the Sun now. Going to 4 million miles will up the amount of radiation by orders of magnitude.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by harrkev ( 623093 )

      still cool nonetheless

      They wish. Keeping it cool is going to be the hard part.

    • It isn't going to touch the Sun; it won't get anywhere near the surface...

      The sun is a ball of gas. It does not have a "surface" in any meaningful sense.

      • It isn't going to touch the Sun; it won't get anywhere near the surface...

        The sun is a ball of gas. It does not have a "surface" in any meaningful sense.

        Nuh uh! It has a solid iron surface just below the photosphere. http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.... [thesurfaceofthesun.com]

        (I can't figure out if that guy is serious or has constructed an elaborate hoax. I'm leaning towards the former.)

        • That's one of my favourite websites.

        • Nuh uh! It has a solid iron surface just below the photosphere. http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.... [thesurfaceofthesun.com]

          The average density of the sun is 1410 kg/m^3 and the outer layers are much less dense than that. The density of iron is 7870 kg/m^3. So I don't think so.

          • Nuh uh! It has a solid iron surface just below the photosphere. http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.... [thesurfaceofthesun.com]

            The average density of the sun is 1410 kg/m^3 and the outer layers are much less dense than that. The density of iron is 7870 kg/m^3. So I don't think so.

            But the iron is porous. Didn't you see his pictures? And apparently solid at high temperature, and strong enough to avoid crushing the pores closed. Maybe it's iron from Krypton.

      • Re:"Touch" the Sun? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 26, 2017 @06:29PM (#54495063)

        There are a number of ways to define the depth of the Sun's atmosphere.
        1. The largest is the Heliosphere which is very roughly a tear-drop shaped region varying between 121 AU (astronomical units) and a lot larger (the heliotail is of unknown length). The boundary between the heliosphere and the local interstellar medium is called the heliopause and is defined as the region where the "pressure" of the interstellar medium is balanced by the "pressure" of the solar wind. Fewer and fewer low speed particles are flowing away from the Sun past the heliopause, and fewer low speed cosmic rays (and cosmic dust) are able to penetrate past it. Voyager spacecraft have passed the heliopause and are in interstellar space.
        2. The next logical definition is the "termination shock" where the solar wind's speed transitions from supersonic to subsonic (due to 'resistance' as well as the particles climbing out of the Sun's gravitational well). This is out at about 80 to 90 AU (twice to thrice the distance to Pluto).
        3. Next logical "surface" is the "end" of the Corona, which is the region which looks like a halo around the Sun when photographed during a solar eclipse. It surrounds the Sun (but its distance varies with time and electric/magnetic field strength) for millions of kilometers (the Sun's diameter is about 1.4 Gm (giga meter = million km)). It's the region of space where the Solar Wind is so hot that it's visibly glowing.
        4. The photosphere is the Sun's "usual" or generally accepted surface. It's a relatively thin region - optically a bit more transparent that Earth's sea level (dry, clean) atmosphere (but of course a lot hotter 4000 - 6000C and less dense (0.0002 (vs 1.25 kg/m^3 at 1 atm))). It's about 400-500 km thick and is defined as the region below which the Sun has become opaque to visible light. The chromosphere directly above it is much hotter, a inconvenient fact that we've yet to explain. This region is where the surfaces of sunspots can be seen, and below it is the convection zone where the Sun's inner material floats up and radiates heat. (It takes an estimated 170,000 years for a photon released in the core in a fusion reaction to bump it's way to the 'surface' of the Sun, (assuming you're ok with the idea that one gamma-ray photon scatteres into thousands of lower frequency photons but still is in some way the same thing... The heat from that same fusion reaction takes a lot longer, millions of years, to make its way to the surface...but none of this has anything to do with locating the "surface"...)
        The Earth is immersed inside the Solar Wind, as far as I'm concerned we're inside the Sun, although our magnetic field protects us from a lot of radiation. "Touching" the Sun is a bit of hyperbole.

      • It's a miasma of incandescent plasma.

  • Please, please, please, (Score:5, Funny)

    by TFlan91 ( 2615727 ) on Friday May 26, 2017 @03:31PM (#54493921)

    Please let's spin this as "the first human to touch the sun", so we can convince Trump's ego to make him go first...

  • Will not have an extended mission like many of NASA's other projects. I can't imagine how its going to hold up against that kind of environment.

  • I can practically hear the NASA commentators already...

    (Harry) "Well folks, we've made it!! After 390 billion dollars and months of waiting, we're finally here to obser..."

    (the Sun) FWOOOOOOOSH!

    (Harry) "Fuck me sidways, that was the most expensive solar flare in history. What say you, Dick?"

    (Dick) "Yup. Reminds of that one night in Vegas when I was banging a hooker on the high-stakes blackjack table. Fun while it lasted."

  • Praise the sun!

  • Let's hope they don't need the help of Thunderbirds 2, 3 and Brains' Rescue Beam!
  • Please name the craft Disaster Area! PLEASE!

  • After all, the rents there are outrageous.

  • It will be interesting to learn the improvements for electronics to survive such an hostile environment, with high energy particles, gamma rays, and intense heat.

  • Set the controls for the heart of the sun.

    They better be streaming that when it goes into orbit or else stoners everywhere will be really disappointed. Well, actually, they would be if they weren't so stoned.

    Hey, careful with that axe Eugene!

  • "The resulting data will improve forecasts of major space weather events that impact life on Earth,"

    As soon as the press conference occurs one of Trump's toadies will scurry back to the White House (imagine a cockroach) and tattle tail that NASA has defied the President and has a mission to study the weather. Trump will fly into a rage and change NASA's budget priorities. NASA will be charged to prove the world i flat and was formed by God 6000 years ago.

    1. Prove the Earth is Flat.

    2. ???

    3. Profit!!

  • Please send him up there too. Thanks in advance.

  • If NASA's probe doesn't have permission to touch the Sun , it could get burned...

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