NASA probe that ‘touched the sun’ for first time could help people better understand the solar system.


By 
Timothy Bella, The Washington Post. 

Excerpt: A NASA spacecraft became the first to “touch the sun,” scientists announced Tuesday — a long-awaited milestone and a potential giant leap in understanding the sun’s influence on the solar system. The Parker Solar Probe successfully flew through the sun’s corona, or upper atmosphere, in April to sample particles and its magnetic fields, according to research published in the journal Physical Review Letters. The findings were also announced Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting in New Orleans. ...The spacecraft, launched three years ago in an effort to study the sun and its dangers, will help scientists uncover significant and unknown information about Earth’s closest star, including how the flow of the sun’s particles can influence the planet. ...The spacecraft’s brush with the sun is the culmination of a mission more than 60 years in the making. ...After the nation’s top scientists in 1958 compiled a list of missions that they thought NASA, then a brand-new space agency, should pursue, dreams such as the Hubble Space Telescope, the twin Voyager spacecraft and the Apollo programall eventually became realities. But the goal of reaching the sun remained elusive.… See also NASA blog entry for 11/24/2021: Parker Solar Probe Completes a Record-Setting Swing by the Sun.

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