What is parker solar probe.
Parker solar probe orbit path.
Just over a month after parker solar probe marked two action packed years in space and hot on the heels of its third venus flyby and fifth solar orbit the mission to touch the sun released another trove of data to the public on sept.
Parker solar probe will use seven venus flybys over nearly seven years to gradually shrink its orbit around the sun coming as close as 3 83 million miles and 6 16 million kilometers to the sun well within the orbit of mercury and about seven times closer than any spacecraft has come before.
The spacecraft about the size of a small car will travel directly into the sun s atmosphere about 4 million miles from our star s surface.
On the final three orbits solar probe plus will fly to within 3 7 million miles of the sun s surface.
Studies in the 1970s and 1980s reaffirmed its importance but it.
Solar probe plus will orbit the sun 24 times gradually walking in toward the sun with each pass.
The parker solar probe concept originates in the 1958 report by the fields and particles group committee 8 of the national academy of sciences space science board which proposed several space missions including a solar probe to pass inside the orbit of mercury to study the particles and fields in the vicinity of the sun.
This latest data captured by the spacecraft s four instrument suites spans parker solar probe s fourth orbit around the sun including its.
Nasa s parker solar probe will be the first ever mission to touch the sun.
The closest points of each orbit come well within the path of mercury the closest planet to the sun.