Parker Solar Probe, Take the Solar Plunge |
Parker Solar Probe, Take the Solar Plunge |
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#101
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![]() Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2454 Joined: 8-July 05 From: NGC 5907 Member No.: 430 ![]() |
Any serious plans to send a probe into the Sun to explore its depths as far as possible?
What would help a probe last as long as it could and how deep could it get? Could it even radio or laser out any data? What about a Sun skimmer? -------------------- "After having some business dealings with men, I am occasionally chagrined,
and feel as if I had done some wrong, and it is hard to forget the ugly circumstance. I see that such intercourse long continued would make one thoroughly prosaic, hard, and coarse. But the longest intercourse with Nature, though in her rudest moods, does not thus harden and make coarse. A hard, sensible man whom we liken to a rock is indeed much harder than a rock. From hard, coarse, insensible men with whom I have no sympathy, I go to commune with the rocks, whose hearts are comparatively soft." - Henry David Thoreau, November 15, 1853 |
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#102
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Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 200 Joined: 20-November 05 From: Mare Desiderii Member No.: 563 ![]() |
What's going on with all the streaks? These pictures make space seem very... not-empty.
This is the press release explanation, but I still have questions: QUOTE Bright streaks in WISPR, such as the ones seen here, are typically caused by a combination of charged particles — called cosmic rays — sunlight reflected by grains of space dust, and particles of material expelled from the spacecraft’s structures after impact with those dust grains. The number of streaks varies along the orbit or when the spacecraft is traveling at different speeds, and scientists are still in discussion about the specific origins of the streaks here. If it's dust and/or cosmic rays, why don't approximately all deep-space images have this sort of artifact? (I assume PSP isn't shedding orders of magnitude more material than other spacecraft at this point in its orbit.) Is there something special about the instrument or observation that makes it pick this stuff up? (I know it has a very wide FOV, where most imagers we're used to are very narrow, but I'm failing to understand why that would have this effect.) In some frames, particularly the fourth frame in Ian R's latest (reproduced here), the tracks are curved, which makes me think they can't be cosmic rays (should be fast = straight)? But that seems like a lot of dust. What is going on in this picture? (I assume the more orderly streaks are curved star trails, so presumably the spacecraft was changing attitude during the observation.) |
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#103
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![]() Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 611 Joined: 23-February 07 From: Occasionally in Columbia, MD Member No.: 1764 ![]() |
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#104
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![]() Newbie ![]() Group: Members Posts: 7 Joined: 19-January 07 From: La Plata, Argentina Member No.: 1630 ![]() |
Hi. Longtime lurker here....working in the field of cosmic rays
It seems to me that the image shows a combination of stellar objects on the background, producing the left to right streaks due to the long exposure, with stratight traces from cosmic rays on the ccd, plus particles moving in the near field during said exposure time. Why do they move like that? local electromagnetic fields from the spacecraft? radiation pressure?...no idea!. But electrostatic forces alone would produce more straight lines wouldnt they? |
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#105
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![]() Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 ![]() |
The PSP is constantly being hit by hyper-velocity dust particles. It's easy to forget that PSP is not only coming into close proximity to the Sun, but also traveling through inter-planetary dust at unusually high velocities, making those impacts with microscopic dust particles far more impactful. This may speak to some of the earlier questions about image artifacts as a phenomenon which is, basically, so far unique to PSP alone among all interplanetary spacecraft.
https://phys.org/news/2021-11-tiny-grains-s...ty-impacts.html |
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#106
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![]() Member ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 611 Joined: 23-February 07 From: Occasionally in Columbia, MD Member No.: 1764 ![]() |
impacts with microscopic dust particles...... image artifacts as a phenomenon which is, basically, so far unique to PSP alone among all interplanetary spacecraft. I thought some similar image features had been seen on STEREO. And the impacts on Juno's solar arrays as detected in its star trackers were used to map the distribution of dust in the Zodiacal cloud and determine a Mars system origin for some of the dust.... |
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#107
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![]() Senior Member ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Members Posts: 2530 Joined: 20-April 05 Member No.: 321 ![]() |
Good catch, Ralph. I think the main difference with STEREO is that the impacts in that case led to fragmentation into smaller solid secondaries, while at the hypervelocity of PSP, the impactors are being turned into plasma.
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