NASA plans to visit the Sun

Can you imagine the photos this probe is going to send back? What an amazing adventure it will be for mankind, straight through the corona of the sun.

NASA Plans to Visit the Sun

Mystery #1—the corona: If you stuck a thermometer in the surface of the sun, it would read about 6000o C. Intuition says the temperature should drop as you back away; instead, it rises. The sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, registers more than a million degrees Celsius, hundreds of times hotter than the star below. This high temperature remains a mystery more than 60 years after it was first measured.

Mystery #2—the solar wind: The sun spews a hot, million mph wind of charged particles throughout the solar system. Planets, comets, asteroids—they all feel it. Curiously, there is no organized wind close to the sun's surface, yet out among the planets there blows a veritable gale. Somewhere in between, some unknown agent gives the solar wind its great velocity. The question is, what?

"To solve these mysteries, Solar Probe+ will actually enter the corona," says Guhathakurta. "That's where the action is."

Not sure what else to say here except "Awesome"! Star and Flag. Very cool stuff. I can't wait to see what data they get back. If we are still here in 2015

There, the spacecraft's carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures greater than 1400o C and survive blasts of radiation at levels not experienced by any previous spacecraft.

So why don't they just go in winter? hehehehehe...but seriously. The USSR sent probes to Venus, which in short melted due to the heat and pressure of that planet. So has technology really advanced that much that they can send a probe so close to the Sun?

Don't get me wrong, i love the idea, but something tells me it ain't gonna get far...

I say go for it what do we have to loose? 250 billion? with our GDP at 4.1 trillion!
why not!
lets do it!!!, and let YueTube show video qualities

reply to post by WatchNLearn


I think there were 8 or so successful Venera probes sent to Venus by the Soviets, and they all survived long enough on the surface to send back valuable data. They were designed to last an hour to an hour and a half under the immense pressure of Venus.

The solar probe would still be 7 million kilometers away from the Sun. It'd be a harsh environment, but the pressure wouldn't be the same. I just don't know how they'd get a signal out from so close to the Sun

Rent out the movie 'Sunshine', it has a terrible plot that makes no sense, but it seems to be along the same line as a solar probe. I just hope they're not sending a bomb to 'restart' the Sun

Originally posted by WatchNLearn

There, the spacecraft's carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures greater than 1400o C and survive blasts of radiation at levels not experienced by any previous spacecraft.

So why don't they just go in winter?

Why don't they just go at night?

This will be awesome. They really need to spend more money on stuff like this rather than ... the other unpleasent things so much money goes towards that has nothing to do with this thread

reply to post by Parabol

Star and flag in gratitude for the alert. This really captures the imagination.

I'm going to start a scam website selling tickets to Sol. Or maybe a fake video feed from a 'camera in the nose of the probe'.

But seriously... thanks for posting this.