NASA Launches Spacecraft on Mission to 'Touch the Sun'

A NASA spacecraft was launched early Sunday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on an unprecedented journey to get closer to the Earth's sun than ever before and study the star that makes all life on Earth possible.

University of Chicago physicist, Eugene Parker, the man whose 1958 paper predicted the existence of a solar wind - was there, watching the probe that bore his name as it raced into the sky, from Kennedy Space Center.

“All I have to say is, wow, here we go,” said Parker, 91, after the launch. “We’re in for some learning over the next several years.”

When Parker first published his paper proposing the existence of a constant stream of charged particles flowing out from the sun's corona, his work was met with skepticism. But only four years later while on its way to Venus, Mariner 2 picked up the first indications of a solar wind, confirming Parker's work.

However, even now, six decades after Parker published his equations that predicted the solar wind, scientists can't explain the physics driving its acceleration, or the corona's extreme heat. At an average 1.2 million degrees, the corona is far hotter than the surface of the sun, which averages a balmy 10,000 degrees. 

The process that drives the heating between the surface and the corona is unknown and scientists hope the Parker Solar Probe will be able to offer them some answers.

The 1,400-pound Parker Solar Probe was launched by one of the most powerful rockets available - United Launch Alliance's 233-foot Delta IV Heavy at around 3:31 a.m. EDT. 

“This mission truly marks humanity’s first visit to a star that will have implications not just here on Earth, but how we better understand our universe,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “We’ve accomplished something that decades ago, lived solely in the realm of science fiction.”

As it turns out, trying to get something to hit the sun is a lot harder than you think. Because of the leftover lateral velocity the probe retains after launching from Earth, the spacecraft need to shed that extra energy. 

Starting in about six weeks, the spacecraft will make seven flybys of Venus to slow it down and fine tune its trajectory. Once complete, the Parker Solar Probe will then enter the first of 24 petal-shaped orbits around the sun. The first pass is scheduled to go within 15 million miles of the sun's surface - closer than any other probe has gotten before. 

Eventually, as the probe completes more of the orbits, it will close that distance to get within 3.8 million miles of the surface, passing through the sun's super-heated outer atmosphere, or corona. At this point, the probe will be also be making history by traveling at around 430,000 miles per hour, setting the record for fastest man-made object. 

“While we have many missions dedicated to studying the sun from afar, we have never, ever had a mission to get this up close and personal,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

The Parker Solar Probe is protected by an what engineers have nicknamed the "Eight-Foot Frisbee" - a heat shield that is made up of two layers of carbon-carbon composite, sandwiched around carbon foam. The Frisbee is designed to keep the spacecraft's instruments at around 85 degrees. 

The Parker Solar Probe carries four instruments suites that are designed to study magnetic fields, plasma and energetic particles and even take images of the solar wind. 

“Exploring the Sun’s corona with a spacecraft has been one of the hardest challenges for space exploration,” said Nicola Fox, project scientist at APL. “We’re finally going to be able to answer questions about the corona and solar wind raised by Gene Parker in 1958 – using a spacecraft that bears his name – and I can’t wait to find out what discoveries we make. The science will be remarkable.”

Photo: Getty Images