NASA’s Parker Photo voltaic Probe is alive!
Two days after an historic Christmas Eve solar flyby that flew nearer to the star than any spacecraft in historical past — taking the car-sized spacecraft almost 10 instances nearer to the solar than Mercury — the Parker Photo voltaic Probe phoned house for the primary time since its photo voltaic encounter. The spacesent despatched a easy but highly-anticipated beacon tone to Earth simply earlier than midnight late Thursday (Dec. 26).
Scientists on Earth had been out of contact with the Parker Photo voltaic Probe since Dec. 20, when the spaceraft started its automated flyby of the solar, so the sign is a essential affirmation that the spacecraft survived, and is in “good well being and working usually,” NASA shared in an replace early Friday (Dec. 27).
Mission management on the Johns Hopkins Utilized Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland obtained the sign simply earlier than midnight ET on the evening of Dec. 26, the assertion learn.
Parker Photo voltaic Probe has phoned house!After passing simply 3.8 million miles from the photo voltaic floor on Dec. 24 — the closest photo voltaic flyby in historical past — we now have obtained Parker Photo voltaic Probe’s beacon tone confirming the spacecraft is protected. https://t.co/zbWT7iDVtPDecember 27, 2024
The spacecraft is programmed to ship house a extra detailed standing replace on New Yr’s Day, Jan. 1. It is solely then that scientists will know whether or not the spacecraft certainly collected the anticipated observations of the solar from the flyby, Michael Buckley, a spokesperson at JHUAPL, which oversees the Parker Photo voltaic Probe mission, advised Area.com in an e mail. “This offers the crew a greater image of total spacecraft and subsystem/instrument well being, together with whether or not Parker’s knowledge recorders are full.”
The probe ought to transmit the majority of the photographs and science knowledge in late January, when it would have swung away to a protected distance from the solar.
Round 6:53 a.m. EST (1153 GMT) on Christmas Eve, the spacecraft achieved what it was designed for: It swooped to inside 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of the solar’s floor. And it did so whereas touring at a whopping 430,000 mph (690,000 kph) — breaking its personal private finest because the quickest object ever constructed by human fingers.
It is only a complete ‘Yay! We did it’ second,”
Nicola Fox, NASA affiliate administrator for science
“It is only a complete ‘Yay! We did it’ second,” Nicola Fox, NASA’s affiliate administrator for science missions, mentioned in a video replace on Dec. 24.
The truth that the spacecraft survived such an in depth go by the solar is a testomony to the mission crew’s engineering, together with a customized, 4.5-inch-thick warmth protect and an autonomous system that protects the probe from the solar’s intense warmth whereas permitting it to level towards our star and let the coronal materials contact the spacecraft. Whereas the warmth protect permits the spacecraft to endure temperatures as much as 2,500 levels Fahrenheit (1,371 levels Celsius), the probe doubtless ended up experiencing decrease — however nonetheless scorching — temperatures of as much as 1,800 levels Fahrenheit (980 levels Celsius), the mission crew has beforehand mentioned.
“No human-made object has ever handed this near a star, so Parker will really be returning knowledge from uncharted territory,” Nick Pinkine, the Parker Photo voltaic Probe mission operations supervisor at APL in Maryland, mentioned in a Dec. 20 assertion.
Since its launch in 2018, the Parker Photo voltaic Probe has helped decode longstanding mysteries about our star, mainly why its outermost layer, the corona, will get a whole lot of instances hotter the farther it strikes from the solar’s floor. Enroute to the solar, the probe serendipitously additionally caught uncommon closeups of passing comets and make clear how Venus, Earth’s hellish twin, might have misplaced its water.
On Christmas Eve, scientists anticipate Parker to have flown by way of plumes of plasma nonetheless hooked up to the solar. It might have additionally noticed various kinds of photo voltaic winds and photo voltaic storms due to ongoing elevated turbulence on the solar’s floor, the mission crew advised reporters earlier this month on the annual AGU assembly.
“We will’t wait to obtain that first standing replace from the spacecraft and begin receiving the science knowledge within the coming weeks,” Parker Photo voltaic Probe program scientist Arik Posner at NASA Headquarters in Washington mentioned within the assertion.
