The Sun, a perfect sphere of hot plasma at our solar system’s centre, is responsible for the existence of life on Earth. Yet our star is little understood, due to the unimaginable extremes of radiation and heat it emits. But NASA will now shed light on this star by blasting its Parker Solar Probe towards the Sun at 213,200 mph.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, an un-manned spacecraft the size of a small family car, is already the closest man-made object ever to the Sun – now a mere 15 million miles (24 million km) away from its fiery surface.
“Parker Solar Probe is essential to understanding solar phenomena that have been puzzling us for decades
Dr Nour Raouafi
The NASA probe is about to begin its second of 24 solar encounters at 11.40pm BST (6.40pm EDT) this evening.
And its latest mission will expose the Parker Probe to the extremes of cosmic radiation - an incredible 500 times more intense than on Earth - in addition to listening temperatures of 1,300C (2,400F).
NASA estimates claim it will be travelling at 213,200 mph (343,000 kph) - fast enough to fly around the world 100 times in an hour.
The first solar encounter occurred last year and the probe is planned to steadily approach the Sun until its final passing in 2024, when it will be a mere 3.8 million miles from the star’s surface.
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Parker Solar Probe: The NASA craft is flying towards the Sun at 213,200 mph (Image: NASA)
NASA Parker Solar Probe: This was taken on the final manned Skylab mission in 1973 (Image: NASA)
The NASA probe has been built to protect its precise instruments from the fierce radiation and deflect enough of the sun's heat.
NASA need to maintain an
