As eclipse approaches, probe orbits sun
Three weeks before the April 8 total eclipse crosses North America, astrophysicist Nour Raouafi turned toward a large eclipse image behind him showing the sun’s wispy white corona streaming around a round black moon.
“It is magnificent. It is mesmerizing. It is so beautiful,” said Raouafi, project scientist for NASA’s Parker Solar Probe mission.
Raouafi, a senior scientist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, delivered a presentation “Extreme Exploration: Going Above and Beyond in Unraveling the Mysteries of the Sun and its Environment” Monday night at the Gleason Performing Arts Center at the Florida Institute of Technology.
Eclipse viewing glasses and sun-related promotional materials were distributed to attendees in the Gleason lobby.
NASA’s $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe took flight on Aug. 12, 2018, atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from then-Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The sturdy spacecraft – which became the first to fly through the corona, the sun’s upper atmosphere – has completed 18 of 24 scheduled orbits around the sun during a seven-year span.
On a Christmas Eve close approach, the Parker Solar Probe should venture within 3.8 million miles from the sun’s surface.
Using a red laser pointer, Raouafi highlighted an image of the spacecraft’s 41⁄2-inch-thick carbon foam heat shield, which protects scientific equipment from broiling temperatures approaching 2,500 degrees.
Raouafi told the audience the sun is active, explosive and unpredictable, and the solar probe is “rewriting the book as we speak” about the star’s mysteries.
“During its journey, the mission will provide answers to long-standing questions that have puzzled scientists for more than 60 years: Why is the corona much hotter than the Sun’s surface (the photosphere)? How does the solar wind accelerate? What are the sources of high-energy solar particles?” a NASA fact sheet says.
“We live in the Sun’s atmosphere and this mission will help scientists better understand the Sun’s impact on Earth. Data from Parker will be key to understanding and, perhaps, forecasting space weather. Space weather can change the orbits of satellites, shorten their lifetimes, or interfere with onboard electronics,” the fact sheet says.
Raouafi said the Parker Solar Probe is sending back so much data on solar wind and other phenomena that scientists will remain busy analyzing it 30 and 40 years from today.
The Great North American Eclipse should block 62.8% of the sun at the Florida Tech campus in Melbourne, according to Sunshine State city-by-city calculations available at eclipse2024.org.
Pineville should get the state’s best view at 82.4%. This small community northwest of Pensacola lies just inside the Florida-Alabama state line.
At the other side of the spectrum, Islamorada in the Middle Keys will only see a 54% eclipse.
Rick Neale is a Space Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Neale at 321242-3638 or Rneale@floridatoday.com . Twitter/X: @RickNeale1