To Orbit the Space Heater

By Barrett Carney '19

This year, human innovation will touch the Sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, set to launch in June of 2018 and begin its first perihelion three months later, will swoop as close as four million miles from the Sun’s surface at nearly 430,000 miles per hour (that’s Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. in one second!) in the midst of its hottest region: the corona.[1] This solar corona—nearly 300 times hotter than the Sun’s photosphere—is the object of mystery among Earth’s most distinguished solar scientists.[2] While most celestial bodies are warmer closest to their cores, the heating mechanism of the corona operates differently, depending on intermittent and explosive bursts of heat on the surface to raise temperatures in the atmosphere.

The instability of the Sun and its corona generates unpredictable solar events that jeopardize 21^st century human activity. To combat these uncertainties, over nearly 7 years, the Parker Solar Probe will sample the star’s solar winds—the flow of charged particles—through plasma wave measurements in an effort to understand coronal heating and solar wind acceleration. These endeavors are critical to the modern human race, as space weather—the conditions and activities of electromagnetic radiation and charged particles emitted by the Sun—increasingly threatens Earth and its dependence on advanced technology.

Solar wind can shape the orbits of satellites and shake Earth’s magnetic field, knocking out power over vast areas for extended periods of time. With this mission, NASA’s ability to forecast major space events and preserve the modern way of life on Earth will mature considerably, and the journey starts this summer.

To include your name on a memory card that will fly aboard the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft, go to http://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/The-Mission/Name-to-Sun/ by April 27, 2018.

Jhuapl. “Journey to the Sun.” Parker Solar Probe: The Mission, parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/The-Mission/index.php#Journey-to-the-Sun.

Zell, Holly. “Why Is the Sun's Atmosphere Hotter than Its Surface?” NASA, NASA, 27 Apr. 2015, www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/sounding-rockets/strong-evidence-for-coronal-heating-theory-presented-at-2015-tess-meeting.