THE 430 ,000 MPH PROBE SENT TO TOUCH THE SUN
Spacecraft will be the fastest man-made object in history
A SPACECRAFT on a mission to ‘touch the Sun’ has blasted off on its quest to get seven times closer to the star than any satellite has before.
The Parker Solar Probe is the fastest man-made object ever, travelling at speeds of up to 430,000 miles per hour – which could get you from John o’ Groats to Land’s End in just seven seconds. Or it could zip from New York to Tokyo in under a minute.
The Nasa probe itself is the size of a family car. But with the speeds planned for the mission, the spacecraft requires 55 times more launch energy than a trip to Mars.
To enable this, the probe is attached to a 72metre-high Delta IV Heavy rocket – complete with 600 tons of fuel.
It launched in the early hours of yesterday from Cape Canaveral, Florida, after a last-minute technical glitch delayed its planned lift off on Saturday.
The £1.2billion probe will swing round Venus in October and then travel through the Sun’s outer atmosphere – the corona – during its seven-year mission, allowing scientists to unlock mysteries about how the solar system works.
In total, it will make 24 loops around the Sun, using Venus as a slingshot several more times, and at its closest will get within 3.8million miles of the surface of the star.
While this may not sound that close, the surface of the Sun is 93million miles from Earth and the closest any craft has previously come is 27million miles.
The probe is equipped with a carbon heat shield to help it withstand blistering temperatures of up to 1,500C (2,732F).
The spacecraft is named after the 91-year-old astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who in 1958 proposed the existence of solar wind – a steady, supersonic stream of particles blasting off the Sun.
He was initially ridiculed for his theory, but it has since been proven that solar wind does exist – it buffets our planet and is the cause of the northern lights.
These solar winds can disrupt radio communications and satellites, so scientists hope the probe will allow them to forecast solar storms and protect satellites orbiting the Earth from future threats.
Yesterday Mr Parker – who is the first living person to have a spacecraft named after him – was among thousands of spectators to watch the blast off. He said he was delighted with the successful launch, adding that it was like looking at the Taj Mahal for years in photos and then beholding ‘the real thing’ in India.
‘Forecast solar storms’