Скачать или смотреть NASA's Probe That TOUCHED The Sun and Survived 2M Degrees F!

In a historic achievement once thought impossible, NASA's Parker Solar Probe became the first human-made object to "touch the Sun". In 2021, the spacecraft flew directly through the Sun's upper atmosphere, the corona, a region of plasma that burns at an incredible 2 million degrees Fahrenheit (about 1.1 million degrees Celsius). Hurtling through this extreme environment at speeds reaching 430,000 mph (700,000 kph), the probe is on a mission to solve some of the longest-standing mysteries about our star.

How does a spacecraft survive such conditions? The answer lies in a mind-bending paradox of physics. While the corona has an extremely high temperature (a measure of how fast its particles are moving), it is also incredibly tenuous—essentially a near-perfect vacuum. This low density means there are very few particles to actually transfer energy, or heat, to the probe. It's the difference between putting your hand in a hot oven (high temperature, high density) versus waving it through the flame of a candle (high temperature, low density). The probe is protected by a 4.5-inch-thick carbon-composite heat shield, which only needs to withstand temperatures of about 2,500 °F (1,377 °C).

Some of its instruments, like the Solar Probe Cup designed to sample solar particles, are even more exposed, constructed from materials like tungsten and sapphire that glow red-hot while taking measurements. By flying into the solar atmosphere, Parker is gathering data to help us understand why the corona is so much hotter than the Sun's surface and what accelerates the solar wind, the constant stream of particles that affects the entire solar system.

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Sources: NASA, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian