Houston, 31st (Nasdaq) - NASA announced today that it plans to launch a detector in 2018, both familiar and unfamiliar to the human body, that will be emitted at a distance of 6.5 million kilometers from the sun's surface Orbit, observation of coronal activity. This will be the first NASA fly into the coronal detectors, but also the first human exposure to the sun.
NASA at the University of Chicago, William Eckhart Research Center announced that it will launch in the summer of 2018 a high about 3 meters, wearing a 12 cm thick carbon composite protective sun detector. Unlike any spacecraft in history, it will fly directly into the orbit of the sun's outer corona, only 6.5 million kilometers from the sun's surface, exploring and observing the sun outside and understanding the solar wind. It will be the first time that human detectors are so close to the sun.
"The idea of how to study the sun at the close of the University of Chicago in 1958 said," There are still many answers to many of the basic questions about the solar wind, "said Luke Kobble, president of the Department of Physical Sciences at the University of Chicago.
NASA Scientific Research Deputy Director Thomas Zuboson announced that the detector named "Parker Sun Detector" to commemorate the University of Chicago honorary professor, astronomer Eugene Parker, Parker is a pioneer in solar wind science. This is the first time NASA has named the spacecraft in mind.
"The sun detectors are entering a space that has never been explored, and it's exciting! People want to make more detailed measurements of what is happening in the solar wind and believe there will be some surprises," said Parker, who attended the conference.
"This is our first mission to the sun," said Eric Christine, a NASA scientist at the Greenbucks Space Flight Center in Greenland, Maryland. "The key issue with solar detectors is whether they can withstand extreme temperatures. "Parker Sun Detector" will be equipped with a 12 cm thick carbon composite coat, can withstand up to 1400 degrees Celsius hot and radiation, the nearest place in the sun to 72 million kilometers per hour speed.
According to a recent report by the US National Academy of Sciences, no recent warning of solar storms could result in a loss of $ 2 trillion in the United States alone and a lack of electricity on the eastern coast for a year, according to a report by the US Cable News Network. NASA pointed out that the rapid detection of the sun, will answer some of the problems that have plagued astronomers for a long time, help to reveal the sun's operating mechanism, understand the relationship between the sun and planets, the Earth, improve the ability of man to predict space weather, The main weather events of life, and the observation of space satellites and astronauts. For the solar physics, the "Parker Sun Detector" is called the Hubble telescope level task, the plan is expected to end in June 2025.