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[Lucky Seven]

Looks like things are really HEATING UP at NASA

 

[TheContact]

Thats fucking cool.

Nah that's HOT

Ok burn me up

 

[Biff]

I've already received the probes preliminary report:

lol

 

[Wag]

Trump administration denies Sun is hot.

 

[PlayALLtheGames]

Trump administration denies Sun is hot.

It'll be a great argument for them against climate change.

"Folks, did you see this? NASA, and ill admit they got some smart guys, said the sun is very, very, very hot. Tremendously hot. So of course our climate is going to get warmer. Come on. I don't know. Maybe I'm making it too simple. But it's simple. It's simple stuff folks."

Anyway, saw a report on this project earlier and can't wait to see what data it provides. I mean, you know, other than that the sun is tremendously hot.

 

[DaiHard]

 

[Elfforkusu]

I like these missions to places where humans could never go (Juno, now this).

Makes me feel better about us effing around and doing very little manned exploration for the last 40+ years!

 

[UrokeJoe]

http://imgur.com/a/nbymo

I don't even know how to post a fucking image anymore....

 

[Guess Who]

can i sign up to go

 

[GK86]

Link.

NASA is naming its upcoming mission to ”touch the Sun" after Eugene Parker, a prominent astrophysicist who discovered the existence of solar wind — the charged particles that are constantly streaming from our star. The mission, originally named Solar Probe Plus, will now be called the Parker Solar Probe. It's the first time NASA has named one of its missions after a scientist who is still alive. Parker discovered solar wind in the 1950s and is about to celebrate his 90th birthday.

The Parker Solar Probe is NASA's plan to send a spacecraft closer to our Sun than ever before. The probe, which is being developed by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, is supposed to launch on top of a Delta IV Heavy rocket in either July or August of 2018 and then spend seven years getting into closer and closer orbits around the Sun. To do this, the vehicle will do seven flybys of Venus, which will eventually bring the spacecraft within 3.7 million miles of the Sun. That's about eight times closer than any other spacecraft has been before, according to NASA.

From this distance, the Parker Solar Probe will analyze the Sun's atmosphere, mainly to figure out the mechanics of the solar wind that Parker discovered. The Sun is constantly spewing out highly charged particles in the form of plasma — what is known as solar wind. And it's all thanks to the Sun's outer atmosphere, or the corona. Even though the corona extends millions of miles out into space, it is unbelievably hot — so hot that it heats up particles to such extreme temperatures that they break free of the Sun's gravity and accelerate outward in all directions. This solar wind, which carries part of the Sun's magnetic field, travels all the way to Earth and slams into our planet's own magnetic field.

Normally, NASA waits to rename its missions after launch, but the space agency decided to break protocol this time since Parker's work has been so instrumental for the spacecraft's mission. His discovery of solar wind has essentially changed our understanding of stars and how they interact with the space around them. Apart from getting the mission named after him, a chip with pictures of Parker will also be included on the vehicles, as well as a copy of his original paper on solar wind.

 

[Pein]

touch the sun is lame, should been Icarus.

 

[RoadHazard]

We had this thread yesterday. But yeah, it's preeeeetty cool. I mean hot.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

thats hot

 

[Kerensky]

Repost: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1382706

 

[GK86]

We had this thread yesterday. But yeah, it's preeeeetty cool. I mean hot.

Repost: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1382706

Opps, I didn't search since I saw it break on twitter.

Thank you mods for merging the thread.

 

[Szu]

The power of the sun... in the palm of my hand.

 

[Cymbal Head]

cool