Murderously hot Nasa probe whizzes close to the sun again
The US solar probe "Parker Solar Probe" plunges into the bubbling atmosphere of the sun. It will fly faster than any other vehicle ever created by humans.
21.03.2025, 22:48
dpa
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- According to the US space agency NASA, the Parker Solar Probe will plunge into the bubbling atmosphere of the sun.
- It will fly faster than any other vehicle ever created by humans - around 690,000 kilometers per hour.
- Scientists hope that Parker's data will help them to better understand why the sun's outer atmosphere is hundreds of times hotter than its surface.
The US solar probe "Parker Solar Probe" will make another record-breaking approach to its target on Saturday. According to the space agency Nasa, Parker will plunge into the seething solar atmosphere and fly faster than any other human-made vehicle - around 690,000 kilometers per hour.
While the probe is approaching the sun at around six million kilometers, communication with Earth is not possible. The mission team will not hear from Parker again until Tuesday afternoon (US time).
Parker was launched in 2018 to study the sun up close. Since then, the probe has flown through the sun's corona several times and came within six million kilometers of the celestial body in December, closer than any other man-made object.
Scientists hope that Parker's data will help them to better understand why the sun's outer atmosphere is hundreds of times hotter than its surface and what drives the solar wind, the supersonic stream of charged particles that is constantly being shot away from the sun and which triggers auroras on Earth, among other things.
