The Parker Solar Probe – Humanity’s Closest Encounter with the Sun

This is the last of the engineering marvel series. This one is a personal fascination, so I might geek out a bit.

The Parker Space Probe (PSP) is one of NASA’s most ambitious projects, designed to study the sun up close like never before. Recently, it even touched the outer layer of the sun, the Corona. Yes, you heard me right; it touched the SUN! Not only that, it recorded the fastest speed for a human made object: 430,000 mph. For comparison, most cars barely go 130 mph. So what were they researching?

They had three main questions in mind. Why is the corona so much hotter than the surface of the sun? The corona is about 1 million Fahrenheit whereas the surface is about 10000 Fahrenheit. The second question is how do solar storms work? Solar storms are super dangerous to astronauts, as it can disrupt all electronic devices and damage satellites. The last question was how do solar winds accelerate? Solar winds are charged particles that affect magnetic fields (so don’t try to use a compass near the sun; you’ll probably get lost). 

Tomorrow, we’ll explore the difficulties and challenges behind building this beast as well as magnificent achievements the PSP has done.