NASA to Launch Mission “Touch the Sun” Next Summer

Do you think touching the Sun is impossible?

The temperature of the surface of the Sun is 5505 °Celsius, while solar corona is 1.7 million degrees Celsius. So, it was an impossible task to touch the Sun till now. Recently NASA has announced that they are going to launch a mission called “Touch the Sun” next summer. It has been a dream project for the National Aerospace Agency (NASA) for decades and now they are nearing the dream.

Next summer NASA will launch a probe to the Sun’s atmosphere in addition to improve space forecasting. The safety of the satellites and astronauts remain a big concern over the year. Because, space is unpredictable all the time, and any weather condition in space can harm the entire system along with the communication here on earth.

In response to the threatening condition, NASA is preparing a probe that will go very close to the Sun. NASA launched a mission several times to monitor the Sun before but not this close. The probe will travel 7 times closer than any other space crafts went before.

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The probe is 10 feet long which can travel 430,000 miles per hour. With this mission, NASA will also make history because there was no spacecraft that fast before. Being named “Parker Solar Probe” it will travel within the 4 million miles of the Sun.

Parker Solar Probe will be able to withstand a temperature of 1371°Celsius which is one-fourth of the Sun’s surface temperature. Despite having the name “Touch the Sun”, Parker is not going to touch the Sun at all, rather It will stay 4 million miles away from the surface.

What Will It Do?

NASA designed the probe with a new heat shield to keep the inner instruments at normal temperature. As the mission statement describes, it will fly around the sun 24 times in 7 years. NASA will monitor the solar wind and its magnetic fields. Moreover, the probe will also take photos of solar structures.

Mission “Touch the Sun” may give us a better understanding of how stars or the Sun works. It will also help scientists understand solar corona is way hotter than the surface. Furthermore, as its primary goal, Parker will help better forecasting space weather or solar storms. According to NASA, a catastrophic solar event may cause damage worth 2 trillion dollars for the US and several other trillions for other nations.