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  • There are billions upon billions of stars in our galaxy, but theyre all so far away.

  • Because of that, weve had to extrapolate pretty much everything we know about stars

  • from our nearest star, the sun.

  • At just about 93 million miles from Earth, the sun is a stone’s throw away compared

  • to the next closest star.

  • But despite our relative proximity, we still have some burning questions about the object

  • that’s holding this whole 8 ring solar circus together.

  • So NASA decided were going to walk right up to the sun and rub our nose in it.

  • In 2018, NASA will launch a solar probe that will travel closer to the sun than any spacecraft

  • before it.

  • At it’s closest point, the probe will be within just 3.9 million miles of the sun,

  • almost seven times closer than the next closest mission, Helios 2 from 1976.

  • The probe will swoop through the sun’s corona, which is the aura of plasma around the sun

  • visible during a solar eclipse, not the adult beverage.

  • It’s able to get within sniffing distance because of advances in material technology.

  • The probe’s carbon composite heat shield will keep the instruments behind it operating

  • at almost room temperature, even though it’s taking a beating from the sun’s heat and

  • radiation.

  • Itll withstand temperatures of 2,500 degrees fahrenheit and light 570 times more intense

  • than what we see on Earth.

  • The goal is to solve some baffling questions about the sun, like why does the solar wind

  • accelerate, and how can the corona be so hot?

  • Yes I know, the corona is hot because it’s near the sun, but it can reach up to over

  • 3 million degrees F, while the sun’s surface peaks atonlyabout eleven thousand.

  • That weird quirk has stumped astronomers, but after this seven year mission, they may

  • finally have an answer.

  • The knowledge gained on this trip could also improve our ability to predict solar weather

  • which would help us better protect satellites, power grids and future space missions from

  • destructive solar events.

  • This probe is not only hot, but a little heartwarming.

  • NASA announced at their press conference that the probe has been named the Parker Solar

  • Probe, after astrophysicist Eugene Parker.

  • There have been a handful of spacecraft named after important figures in the past, but at

  • just shy of 90 years old, Parker is the only one who has lived to see a mission bear his

  • name.

  • Parker’s 1958 paper on solar wind challenged the conventional wisdom of the time and was

  • initially rejected.

  • But it turned out his predictions for the solar wind’s speed and temperature were

  • almost exactly right.

  • NASA’s saying that thanks to Parker’s influence in the field of heliophysics were

  • finally going to touch the sun.

  • Funny, you’d think for all the clever people at NASA like Parker, they would have realized

  • they could save themselves a lot of trouble and just launch a probe to the sun at night.

  • If you like our NASA updates, don’t miss this one where they announced Saturn’s moon

  • Enceladus might have everything necessary for extraterrestrial life!

  • Are you hyped for the Parker Space Probe or are you looking forward to another mission?

  • Let us know down in the comments, and don’t forget to subscribe and keep coming back

  • for more Seeker.

There are billions upon billions of stars in our galaxy, but theyre all so far away.

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