Solar probe
Engineers and scientists are celebrating the setting of a new historical record – for the first time, the creation of human hands has accelerated to a speed of more than half a million kilometers per hour. The solar probe "Parker" is currently moving at a speed of 532,000 km/h and makes its eighth orbit around our star. Its onboard instruments actively collect information about magnetic fields, high-energy particles, and take pictures of the Sun.
The mission of "Parker" started in 2018 and will last until 2024. In order for the probe to get as close to the Sun as possible, but not burn up from its heat, the flight path consists of a series of gravitational maneuvers around the star and the planet Venus. With each such maneuver, the probe accelerates faster and comes closer to the Sun. The previous record, 466,600 km / h and a distance of 13.5 million km, was set on January 17, 2021. Until May 4 of this year, "Parker" will pass at a distance of only 10.4 million km from the Sun at a speed of 532 thousand km/h. We need to collect as much information as possible while the thermal protection is working – the probe is already moving through an area with a temperature of 1377 °C. If the calculations are correct, the device will be able to make 24 turns, now it has done only a third of the planned volume of tasks. We will wait for new records.
Solar probe
