Aurora

What can be benefited FROM SOLAR parker probe discoveries

NOW after Parker’s discoveries, we can predict the coming solar wind that is coming from the sun before damaging the satellites and telecommunications or maybe harmful exposure to astronauts at the international space station which costs billions of dollars or the life of the astronaut. Now we know how to deal with high-temperature areas using shields of carbon-carbon technology, carbonic foam, etc…. 

we touched The Sun

Or what we can say we touched the main source of energy in our Solar System.

Logically it’s impossible to touch the SUN. Its volume would need 1.3 million of Earth to fill so every second, the Sun fuses about 600 million metric tons of hydrogen, that’s the mass of 102 Great Pyramids of Giza or nearly all of the fish on Earth by some estimates. The Sun is squeezing hydrogen into helium at its core under immense pressure and temperature, forging new elements, this process is called fusion. This resulted in some extreme phenomenon as Magnetic Explosions, plasma, Solar winds, Supersonic Shocks, etc…

Steller Corona

The solar wind is a continual stream of protons and electrons from the sun's outermost atmosphere which is known as Steller Corona .these streams contain photons that could get away from the corona due to its high speed spreading all over the solar system negatively affecting all satellites telecommunications. But it’s not the only problem…..

The sun’s surface temperature is about 10.000 o F but its outermost atmosphere (Corona) reaches 1.1 Million F. this Corona which lies between (4.3_8.6 million miles from the Earth) is a chamber of secrets so, that was the first challenge that faces NASA in 1958.

The first mission we have to put in our minds is Heat

Firstly we must Know the difference between Heat And Temperature.

High temperatures do not always translate to 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 it’s like putting your hand in a hot oven versus putting it in a pot of boiling water.

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).

Parker Solar Probe

NASA started working on Parker Solar Probe In 1958 till 2018. It’s a leap in the space science field cause it’s the fastest spacecraft ever it can travel at a speed-topping (DEC 2024) nearly 700,000 KM/hour (traveling from Cairo to Alex in 1 second). This probe will be the first probe ever that touches the solar surface, it will be further by 7 times than the nearest probe to the sun. Also, it will give us a lot of hidden information about the sun, the main source of the solar wind, its rotation, the non-dust area, its certain location, etc….

Parker Solar Probe has three main parts (systems) that keep all the components of the solar probe Cool at 30oc

First; the shield that protects all the body

Parker Solar Probe makes use of a heat shield known as the Thermal Protection System, or

TPS 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.

It was built in Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, using 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.

Second is 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.

The cup itself is made from sheets of Titanium-Zirconium-Molybdenum, an alloy of molybdenum, with a melting point of about 4,260 F (about 2,350 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 (about 3,450 C).

Most cables would melt from exposure to heat to solve this problem, the team grew sapphire crystal tubes that bear under pressure to suspend the wiring and made the wires from niobium (about 2,500 °C).

To be 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.

Third; the Spacecraft That Keeps its Cool

Parker Solar Probe has a cooling system consisting of 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, about a gallon (3.7 liters) of deionized water is used in this Cooling system. The range of temperatures the spacecraft will be exposed to varies between 50 F (10 C) and 257 F (125 C).

Controlling it

Parker Solar Probe will largely be alone on its journey which means 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. So, it‘ll be automatically controlled using AI.

Parker comes with amazing Solar information  

·       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.

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

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

·       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.

·       Tiny particles (both electrons and ions) are accelerated by solar activity, creating storms of energetic particles. Events on the Sun can send these particles 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

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