Aurora

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https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1V20ay0vfeenCTVNSX174UVquewAbGcFS?usp=sharing

Traveling to the Sun: Why Won’t Parker Solar Probe Melt?

·        Inside that part of the solar atmosphere, a region known as the corona, Parker Solar Probe will provide unprecedented observations of what drives the wide range of particles, energy and heat that course through the region — flinging particles outward into the solar system and far past Neptune.

·        The spacecraft will travel through material with temperatures greater than a million degrees Fahrenheit while being bombarded with intense sun light.

·        So, why won’t it melt?

·        The key lies in its custom heat shield and an autonomous system that helps protect the mission from the Sun’s intense light emission, but does allow the coronal material to “touch” the spacecraft.

·      The Science Behind Why It Won’t Melt

·        understanding the concept of heat versus temperature

·        High temperatures do not always translate to actually heating another object.

·         In space, the temperature can be thousands of degrees without providing significant heat to a given object or feeling hot.

·        Temperature measures how fast particles are moving, whereas heat measures the total amount of energy that they transfer.

·        Particles may be moving fast (high temperature), but if there are very few of them, they won’t transfer much energy (low heat).

·        Since space is mostly empty, there are very few particles that can transfer energy to the spacecraft.

·       The corona has an extremely high temperature but very low density (putting your hand in a hot oven versus putting it in a pot of boiling water)

·        Similarly, compared to the visible surface of the Sun, the corona is less dense, so the spacecraft interacts with fewer hot particles and doesn’t receive as much heat.

·        That means that while Parker Solar Probe will be traveling through a space with temperatures of several million degrees, the surface of the heat shield that faces the Sun will only get heated to about 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,400 degrees Celsius).

·       The Shield That Protects It

·        to withstand that heat, Parker Solar Probe makes use of a heat shield known as the Thermal Protection System, or TPS, which is 8 feet (2.4 meters) in diameter and 4.5 inches (about 115 mm) thick. Those few inches of protection mean that just on the other side of the shield, the spacecraft body will sit at a comfortable 85 F (30 C).

·        Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, and was built at Carbon-Carbon Advanced Technologies, using a carbon composite foam sandwiched between two carbon plates. This lightweight insulation will be accompanied by a finishing touch of white ceramic paint on the sun-facing plate, to reflect as much heat as possible.

·       The Cup that Measures the Wind

·        This instrument is what’s known as a Faraday cup, a sensor designed to measure the ion and electron fluxes and flow angles from the solar wind. Due to the intensity of the solar atmosphere, unique technologies had to be engineered to make sure that not only, it can send back accurate readings.

·        The cup itself is made from sheets of Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum, an alloy of molybdenum, with a melting point of about 4,260 F (2,349 C). The grids that produce an electric field for the Solar Probe Cup are made from tungsten, a metal with the highest known melting point of 6,192 F (3,422 C).

·        Most cables would melt from exposure to heat to solve this problem, the team grew sapphire crystal tubes to suspend the wiring, and made the wires from niobium.

·        To be absolutely sure the Solar Probe Cup would withstand the harsh environment, the Oreille Solar Furnace — which concentrates the heat of the Sun through 10,000 adjustable mirrors — was used to test the cup against the intense solar emission.

·       The Spacecraft That Keeps its Cool

·        But that close to the Sun, two radiators that will keep the coolant from freezing, aluminum fins to maximize the cooling surface, and pumps to circulate the coolant

·        The cooling system is powerful enough to cool an average sized living room, and will keep the solar arrays and instrumentation cool and functioning while in the heat of the Sun.

·        The coolant used for the system? About a gallon (3.7 liters) of deionized water.

·         The range of temperatures the spacecraft will be exposed to varies between 50 F (10 C) and 257 F (125 C). Very few liquids can handle those ranges like water.

·        Parker Solar Probe will largely be alone on its journey. It takes light eight minutes to reach Earth — meaning if engineers had to control the spacecraft from Earth, by the time something went wrong it would be too late to correct it.

·        So, the spacecraft is designed to autonomously keep itself safe and on track to the Sun. Several sensors, about half the size of a cell phone, are attached to the body of the spacecraft along the edge of the shadow from the heat shield. If any of these sensors detect sunlight, they alert the central computer and the spacecraft can correct its position to keep the sensors, so the central computer software has been programmed and extensively tested

·        Its journey for the next three months, embracing the heat of the Sun and protecting itself from the cold vacuum of space.

·        The spacecraft will make 24 orbits of our star. On each close approach to the Sun it will sample the solar wind, study the Sun’s corona

·     Space Dust Presents Opportunities, Challenges as Parker Solar Probe Speeds Back toward the Sun

·        When it comes about 5.3 million miles (8.5 million kilometers) from the Sun’s surface, while reaching top speeds of 101 miles (163 kilometers) per second, or 364,621 miles per hour. The probe’s science instruments are already queued up to measure the properties of the solar wind near its source

·        “We’re observing higher than expected amounts of dust near the Sun,” said Noor Raouafi

·        Scientists have used this data, for example, to construct comprehensive pictures of the structure and behavior of the large cloud of dust that swirls through the innermost solar system.

·        “We designed materials and components that survive hypervelocity dust impacts and the effects of the even smaller particles created in these impacts,” said Jim Kinston installed fault-tolerant onboard systems that are keeping Parker Solar Probe safe in this unexplored region.”

·        The guidance and control software uses data from the star trackers in tandem with an inertial measurement unit and solar-limb sensors to keep the Thermal Protection System – the heat shield – pointed toward the Sun.

·        “Because the system was built to be robust and highly autonomous, loss of data from any one source doesn’t affect the ability to control the spacecraft attitude,

·        he added, with Parker Solar Probe only set to move closer to – and faster around – the Sun. Assisted by two more Venus flybys, in August 2023 and November 2024, Parker Solar Probe will eventually come within 4 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) of the solar surface in December 2024, at speeds topping 430,000 miles per hour.

Five Weird Things That Happen in Outer Space

·        Space is dominated by invisible electromagnetic forces that we typically don’t feel

1. Plasma

·        Made of loose ions and electrons, this substance is in a supercharged state beyond gas that’s created when matter is heated to extreme temperatures or is plied with a strong electric current.

·        All the stars in the night sky, including the Sun, are mostly made of plasma. 

·         Plasma can act collectively, like a team. It both conducts electricity and is influenced by electromagnetic fields

·         These fields can control the movements of charged particles in plasma and create waves that accelerate the particles to immense speeds.

·         On the Sun, magnetic fields launch solar flares and direct belches of plasma, known as the solar wind

·         It can drive energetic processes, like the auroras and space weather, which if strong enough, can damage satellites and telecommunications.

2. Extreme Temperatures

·         But what we consider extreme on Earth is average in space. On planets without an insulating atmosphere, temperatures wildly fluctuate between day and night. Mercury regularly sees days around 840°F (449°C) and and frigid nights as low as -275°F (-171°C).

·        NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, at closest approach to the Sun, will experience differences over 2,000 degrees.

·         NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spends the vast majority of its time in direct sunlight,

·         During this cosmic conjunction, otherwise known as an eclipse, the temperature of the Sun-facing solar panels drops by 317°F (158°C).

·         Similarly, astronaut suits are built to withstand temperatures from -250°F to 250°F (-157°C to 121°C). The suits are white to reflect light while in the sunshine, and heaters are placed throughout the inside to keep astronauts warm in the dark.

3. Cosmic Alchemy

·        Every second, the Sun fuses about 600 million metric tons of hydrogen. That’s the mass of 102 Great Pyramids of Giza, 1,812 Empire State Buildings, or nearly all of the fish on Earth by some estimates.

·        Right now, the Sun is squeezing hydrogen into helium at its core. This process of joining atoms together under immense pressure and temperature, forging new elements, is called fusion.

·        Fusion releases enormous amounts of energy and particles of light called photons. These photons take some 250,000 years to bump their way up the 434,000 miles (about 700,000 kilometers) to reach the Sun’s visible surface from the solar core. After that, the light only takes eight minutes to travel the 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) to Earth.

·        Scientists have not yet figured out how to control the plasma in a way to produce power from fusion reactions.

4. Magnetic Explosions

·        Earth’s upper atmosphere, where they spark the auroras.

·        Like in flares on the Sun, in areas surrounding black holes, and around other stars.

5. Supersonic Shocks

·      But in outer space, particles can transfer energy without even touching. This strange transfer takes place in invisible structures known as shocks.

·      In shocks, energy is transferred through plasma waves and electric and magnetic fields.

·      Shocks can be temporarily created on Earth. This happens when bullets and planes travel faster than the speed of sound.

NASA Enters the Solar Atmosphere for the First Time, Bringing New Discoveries

·      For the first time in history, a spacecraft has touched the Sun. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has now flown through the Sun’s upper atmosphere – the corona – and sampled particles and magnetic fields there. 

·      Just as landing on the Moon allowed scientists to understand how it was formed, touching the very stuff the Sun is made of will help scientists uncover critical information about our closest star and its influence on the solar system. 

·      "Not only does this milestone provide us with deeper insights into our Sun's evolution and its impacts on our solar system, but everything we learn about our own star also teaches us more about stars in the rest of the universe.”

·      In 2019, Parker discovered that magnetic zig-zag structures in the solar wind, called switchbacks, are plentiful close to the Sun.

Closer Than Ever Before 

·      Unlike Earth, the Sun doesn’t have a solid surface. But it does have a superheated atmosphere, made of solar material bound to the Sun by gravity and magnetic forces. As rising heat and pressure push that material away from the Sun, it reaches a point where gravity and magnetic fields are too weak to contain it.

·      Until now, researchers were unsure exactly where the Alfven critical surface lay. Based on remote images of the corona, estimates had put it somewhere between 10 to 20 solar radii from the surface of the Sun – 4.3 to 8.6 million miles.

Into the Eye of the Storm 

·      During the flyby, Parker Solar Probe passed into and out of the corona several times. This is proved what some had predicted – that the Alfven critical surface isn’t shaped like a smooth ball.

·      (Around 6.5 million miles) from the Sun’s surface, it transited a feature in the corona called a pseudostreamer. Pseudostreamers are massive structures that rise above the Sun’s surface and can be seen from Earth during solar eclipses.

·      Passing through the pseudostreamer was like flying into the eye of a storm. Inside the pseudostreamer, the conditions quieted, particles slowed, and number of switchbacks dropped – a dramatic change from the busy barrage of particles the spacecraft usually encounters in the solar wind. 

Narrowing Down Switchback Origins

·      The data showed one spot that switchbacks originate is at the visible surface of the Sun – the photosphere. 

·      The clues came as Parker orbited closer to the Sun on its sixth flyby, less than 25 solar radii out. Data showed switchbacks occur in patches and have a higher percentage of helium – known to come from the photosphere – than other elements.

·      Understanding where and how the components of the fast solar wind emerge, and if they’re linked to switchbacks, could help scientists answer a longstanding solar mystery: how the corona is heated to millions of degrees, far hotter than the solar surface below.

The sun

·    The Sun’s volume would need 1.3 million Earths to fill 

·    The Sun is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from Earth

·    The Sun doesn’t actually have a solid surface because it’s a ball of plasma.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe Sheds New Light on the Sun

·      Parker Solar Probe has completed three of 24 planned passes through never-before-explored parts of the Sun's atmosphere, the corona. On Dec. 4, 2019,

·      These findings reveal new information about the behavior of the material and particles that speed away from the Sun

·      Observing the Sun up close rather than from a much greater distance is giving us an unprecedented view into important solar phenomena and how they affect us on Earth, and gives us new insights relevant to the understanding of active stars across galaxies.

·      The Sun is anything but quiet. Our star is magnetically active, unleashing powerful bursts of light, deluges of particles moving near the speed of light and billion-ton clouds of magnetized material.

·      It’s been happening for the Sun's entire 5-billion-year lifetime

·      This ionized gas, called plasma, carries with it the Sun's magnetic field, stretching it out through the solar system in a giant bubble that spans more than 10 billion miles.

The dynamic solar wind  

·      From Parker’s vantage point 15 million miles from the Sun, Bale explained, the solar wind is much more impulsive and unstable than what we see near Earth.

·      Like the Sun itself, the solar wind is made up of plasma, where negatively charged electrons have separated from positively charged ions, creating a sea of free-floating particles with individual electric charge. These free-floating particles mean plasma carries electric and magnetic fields, and changes in the plasma often make marks on those fields. The FIELDS instruments surveyed the state of the solar wind by measuring and carefully analyzing how the electric and magnetic fields around the spacecraft changed over time, along with measuring waves in the nearby plasma

·      “Waves have been seen in the solar wind from the start of the space age, and we assumed that closer to the Sun the waves would get stronger, but we were not expecting to see them organize into these coherent structured velocity spikes,"

·      Among the many particles that perpetually stream from the Sun are a constant beam of fast-moving electrons, which ride along the Sun’s magnetic field lines out into the solar system. These electrons always flow strictly along the shape of the field lines moving out from the Sun

The rotating solar wind

·      Near Earth, we see the solar wind flowing almost radially — meaning it's streaming directly from the Sun, straight out in all directions. But the Sun rotates as it releases the solar wind; before it breaks free, the solar wind was spinning along with it.

·      The solar wind transitions from rotating along with the Sun to flowing directly outwards, or radially, like we see from Earth.

·      Parker Solar Probe was able to observe the solar wind while it was still rotating.

Dust near the Sun

·      Our solar system is awash in dust — the cosmic crumbs of collisions that formed planets, asteroids, comets and other celestial bodies billions of years ago.

·      "This dust-free zone was predicted decades ago, but has never been seen before,"

·      scientists expect to see a truly dust-free zone starting a little more than 2-3 million miles from the Sun — meaning Parker Solar Probe could observe the dust-free zone as early as 2020

Putting space weather under a microscope

·      Parker Solar Probe's measurements have given us a new perspective on two types of space weather events: energetic particle storms and coronal mass ejections.

·      Tiny particles — both electrons and ions — are accelerated by solar activity, creating storms of energetic particles. Events on the Sun can send these particles rocketing out into the solar system at nearly the speed of light, meaning they reach Earth in under half an hour and can impact other worlds on similarly short time scales. These particles carry a lot of energy, so they can damage spacecraft electronics and even endanger astronauts, especially those in deep space, outside the protection of Earth's magnetic field

·      the Sun produces many more tiny energetic particle events than we ever thought

Five Questions About Space Weather and Its Effects on Earth, Answered

·        Similarly, space is full of dynamic weather patterns that can have real effects for life on Earth. Space weather refers to conditions in the solar system produced by the Sun’s activity.

·        Just as weather is always occurring on Earth, space weather is ongoing. Even without major solar activity, satellites and communications systems can be impacted by variability in the density and composition of the near-earth environment.

·        space weather in our solar system is composed of radiation and particles from the Sun.

·        Earth has a strong, large magnetic field produced by charged molten iron churning in its core

·        The area within the safety of Earth’s magnetic field is called the magnetosphere.

·        Earth’s magnetosphere is quite large and strong. On the side away from the Sun, it extends hundreds of times the length of Earth’s roughly 4,000 mile-radius. The magnetosphere faces much more pressure on the side facing the Sun, where it extends 6 to 10 times Earth’s radius (between around 25,000 miles to 40,000 miles).

·        Another barrier is Earth’s thick atmosphere, which blocks harmful light radiation from the Sun from reaching Earth’s surface.

·   NASA RESOURCES

1. Parker Solar Probe Touches the Sun
2. NASA's Parker Solar Probe Touches The Sun For The First Time
3. Parker Solar Probe overview
4. Parker Solar Probe’s Heat Shield (Why Won’t Parker Solar Probe Melt?)
5. Parker Solar Probe Encounters Space Dust
6. Five Weird Things that Happen in Outer Space
7. Five New Discoveries from Parker Solar Probe
8. How Scientists Track the Solar Cycle
9. Space Weather and How it Affects Earth - Five Questions and Answers
10. Basic facts about the Sun

This is my first try at the hackathon ever, but it’s worth a try. Also, it’s organized. Till Now I got a lot of experience in searching, writing scientific papers, etc….

I learned more about the sun and

the phenomenon that occurs around it.

In my childhood, I dreamt to go in

a spacecraft and float in space cause I was watching a lot of documentary films

presented by National Geographic on the T.v

So, that gives me the passion to

enter this Challenge.

Thank god there wasn’t a lot of

setbacks cause the project was fully prepared before starting the

research

As the team put some graduated

steps to complete the project finely.

I want to thank all my family for

their support, the team who organized Benha NASA space apps, and Mrs. Lamess

Goda for her advertisement about this hackathon.

1.   NASA Enters the Solar Atmosphere for the First Time, Bringing New Discoveries By Mara Johnson-Groh

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md

2.   Traveling to the Sun: Why Won’t Parker Solar Probe Melt?

By Susannah Darling

NASA Headquarters, Washington

3.   Five Weird Things That Happen in Outer Space By Mara Johnson-Groh

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

4.   NASA's Parker Solar Probe Sheds New Light on the Sun By Sarah Frazier

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

5.   How Scientists Around the World Track the Solar Cycle By Lina Tran

NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

6.   Five Questions About Space Weather and Its Effects on Earth, AnsweredBy Alison Gold NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. 

#parker_Solar_Probe #on_the_way_to_the_sun #corona #steller_Corona