After the first launch attempt could not take place, rose the probe, “Parker Solar Probe” now to the sky. In November, you should come out of the sun for the first time very close to your atmosphere to investigate.
With a day delay, the US space Agency NASA has launched the first probe to fly into the sun’s atmosphere. The “Parker Solar Probe” lifted off aboard a “Delta IV Heavy”rocket from the spaceport at Cape Canaveral in Florida, as NASA announced.
The first, scheduled for Saturday launch was stopped according to NASA, because an irregularity has been observed during the last minutes of the countdown. With the help of the force of gravity of Venus, the probe towards the sun to fly, and in November for the first time close to.
The probe has to withstand high temperatures
Protected by a nearly twelve-inch-thick carbon tank “Parker’s Solar Probe will have to withstand” more heat and radiation than a flight body previously, reported NASA. The probe is about as big as a small, and around 700 kilograms. You should approach the star in our solar system up to about 6.2 million kilometers and more than 1370 degrees Celsius withstand.
So it should look once, when the spacecraft approaches the sun
“Parker” will orbit the sun in large elliptical orbits, and the outer layer of the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, to pass through. At your lowest distance to reach a speed of 700,000 miles per hour. So you would need Hamburg to Berlin than a second.
Weather forecasts could be more accurate
The NASA researchers ‘ promise of the up 2025 scheduled Mission findings about why the corona is many times hotter than the surface of the sun, and thus also of the functioning of stars. The data collected could also make future weather predictions are more accurate.
The NASA probe is the first project that studied the sun from up close. Already in the 1970s, the German-American probes Helios 1 and Helios 2, however, with approximately 45 million kilometres, a distance from the heat of the ball were started.
jmw/fab (dpa, ap, afp)