VIDEO OF LAUNCH: NASA's Parker Solar Probe On It's Way To 'Touch The Sun'

originally posted by: UpIsNowDown
@Brizzle
Its a strange counter to your opinion that Nasa are faking it, but the only source we have other than Nasa is the movies, which are 100% fake.

What about the European Space Agency, the Soviet/Russian space agency, the Japanese, the Indian? NASA aren't the only ones sending spacecraft out there and studying space.

BTW, most of NASA's spacecraft imagery is available in the original, raw form, without any compositing done to it:

Planetary Data System

Hubble Legacy Archive

Does anyone know where I can find information regarding the close approach distances of the seven Venus flybys?

a reply to: Mogget

But while the Parker Solar Probe is gathering all that data, the spacecraft won't be able to communicate with Earth. Instead, it will focus on making as many observations as possible. Then, it will send back huge chunks of information in batches. Several of those data dumps will come as the spacecraft executes another crucial chore: dancing around Venus to inch closer to the sun. The probe will repeat the gravity-assist maneuver planned for late September a total of seven times throughout the mission, until the spacecraft has slipped too close to the sun to be able to loop around Venus. And if all goes well, scientists may get a bonus in addition to the wealth of solar data: observations of Venus. During the sixth gravity assist, the spacecraft won't be aligned well to send data home, so if it has enough power, it may leave its instruments on and turn them to its dance partner. "There is an absolute dearth of Venus missions," Paul Byrne, a planetary geologist at North Carolina State University who studies the planet, told Space.com. "A single flyby in and of itself would not revolutionize our understanding of Venus, but it would be extremely useful." Venus will need its own revolution — but our understanding of the star that shapes every day of our lives will never be the same after scientists start analyzing the data the Parker Solar Probe sends home.

From here.

www.space.com...

Doesn't seem to be any info on distances.

Check it out!


Source: NASA/NRL/Parker Solar Probe

This image shows the first-light data from Parker Solar Probe's WISPR (Wide-field Imager for Solar Probe) instrument suite. The right side of this image—from WISPR's inner telescope—has a 40-degree field of view, with its right edge 58.5 degrees from the sun's center. The bright object slightly to the right of the image's center is Jupiter. The left side of the image is from WISPR's outer telescope, which has a 58-degree field of view and extends to about 160 degrees from the sun. It shows the Milky Way, looking at the galactic center. There is a parallax of about 13 degrees in the apparent position of the sun as viewed from Earth and from Parker Solar Probe.

phys.org, Sept. 20, 2018 - Image: First light data for NASA's Parker Solar Probe.

You can go phys.org, click on the photo, and click again to enlarge and scroll around.

The dot right on the seems is Antares. That is pretty d@mn cool! Can't wait to see this camera at work. It can see the solar wind itself which will be nice to see when it gets closer.