NASA Plans to Visit the Sun

[BeAChooser]

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jun_solarprobe.htm?list1065474


NASA Plans to Visit the Sun

June 10, 2008


... snip ...

The name of the mission is Solar Probe+ (pronounced "Solar Probe plus"). It's a heat-resistant spacecraft designed to plunge deep into the sun's atmosphere where it can sample solar wind and magnetism first hand. Launch could happen as early as 2015. By the time the mission ends 7 years later, planners believe Solar Probe+ will solve two great mysteries of astrophysics and make many new discoveries along the way.

... snip ...

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?

... snip ...

[casebro]

I hope they don't burn up. They better go at night.

Ba-dum-pump

[~enigma~]

Let me guess....the plasma woo is up to his tricks again.

[godless dave]

I predict a certain Pink Floyd song becoming popular at NASA in the near future.

[BeAChooser]

Let me guess....the plasma woo is up to his tricks again.

Nah ... I just seem to recall a few members of this forum informing me with authority that we already know the answers to these mysteries. :)

[Dancing David]

Ah, yes the accumulation of pop science say 'we don't know exactly', there sure are a bunch of hypotheses.

But you will ignore them for some vague speculation taht provides no numbers. They even use the word plasma when they write about SOHO.

[Damien Evans]

I predict a certain Pink Floyd song becoming popular at NASA in the near future.

Set The Controls For The Corona Of The Sun?:p

[TjW]

I predict a certain Pink Floyd song becoming popular at NASA in the near future.
Nah. I think Gene Krantz is retired, so Careful with that axe, Eugene won't be that popular.;)

[Reality Check]

BeAChooser:
The problem with press releases is that they are designed to bring attention to the news item (not the science).

The mystery of the high temperature is more about which plasma physics theory is correct. It is not a mystery in the sense that there are no theories about the cause. There are at least 2 - the wave heating theory and the magnetic reconnection theory. It is likely that Solar Probe+ will provide the data to confirm a known plasma physics theory. There is a small chance that the data will not fit any existing theory and so another one will be required.

I am not sure that the second mystery is stated clearly. The question is really about the mechanism for the acceleration of the solar wind. Once again Solar Probe+ will probably provide data to decide between competing plasma physics theories.

I prefer the less sensationalized mission statement (http://solarprobe.gsfc.nasa.gov/solarprobe_mission.htm) for the probe where the mysteries are questions:
We now know more about the corona and the solar wind than ever before. And yet the two fundamental questions, raised in the 1940s by the discovery of the corona’s million-degree temperature and in the early 1960s by the proof of the supersonic ES-1 solar wind’s existence, remain unanswered: why is the solar corona so much hotter than the photosphere? And how is the solar wind accelerated?

[BeAChooser]

The mystery of the high temperature is more about which plasma physics theory is correct. It is not a mystery in the sense that there are no theories about the cause.

Well I sure hope they don't hit any of those frozen magnetic fields and shatter themselves or the fields. :)


And yet the two fundamental questions, raised in the 1940s by the discovery of the corona’s million-degree temperature and in the early 1960s by the proof of the supersonic ES-1 solar wind’s existence, remain unanswered: why is the solar corona so much hotter than the photosphere? And how is the solar wind accelerated?

Hmmmmm. I don't find that statement much different than the first. :)

In any case, interesting little probe and it appears the designers are thinking outside the box to make it work and keep it relatively inexpensive. Now if we can just get them to think a little farther outside the box ... :D

By the way, regarding one of the two proposed theories ...

http://www.livescience.com/space/scienceastronomy/080324-mm-hot-corona.html "New Kink in Sun's Strange Corona, By Clara Moskowitz, posted 24 March 2008 ... Last year, astrophysicist Steve Tomczyk of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and his colleagues asserted that corkscrew-shaped Alfven waves were converting the motion energy of the sun's roiling material into heat. But the authors of the new study argue that the waves Tomczyk's team saw were not Alfven waves but kink waves. "Kink waves look like kinks in hair or rope," said University of Warwick astrophysicist Tom Van Doorsselaere, one of the researchers behind the new study. "Kink waves can't explain why the corona is so hot. They carry less energy with them." ... snip ... "At the moment I can't see any other explanation that could explain the observations," Van Doorsselaere told SPACE.com. "I would have wished the other authors were right because it would have been good news to finally solve the problem." The new study was published March 6, 2008, in the Astrophysical Journal Letters."

[Correa Neto]

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry

:duck:

[BenBurch]

BTW, The temperature of the solar corona was first measured by Thomas Edison with an infrared detector he designed and the details of which have been lost.

Nobody believed him.

And it was many years before somebody else measured it and was credited with the discovery.

[Reality Check]

Well I sure hope they don't hit any of those frozen magnetic fields and shatter themselves or the fields. :)



Hmmmmm. I don't find that statement much different than the first. :)

In any case, interesting little probe and it appears the designers are thinking outside the box to make it work and keep it relatively inexpensive. Now if we can just get them to think a little farther outside the box ... :D

By the way, regarding one of the two proposed theories ...

http://www.livescience.com/space/scienceastronomy/080324-mm-hot-corona.html "New Kink in Sun's Strange Corona, By Clara Moskowitz, posted 24 March 2008 ... Last year, astrophysicist Steve Tomczyk of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., and his colleagues asserted that corkscrew-shaped Alfven waves were converting the motion energy of the sun's roiling material into heat. But the authors of the new study argue that the waves Tomczyk's team saw were not Alfven waves but kink waves. "Kink waves look like kinks in hair or rope," said University of Warwick astrophysicist Tom Van Doorsselaere, one of the researchers behind the new study. "Kink waves can't explain why the corona is so hot. They carry less energy with them." ... snip ... "At the moment I can't see any other explanation that could explain the observations," Van Doorsselaere told SPACE.com. "I would have wished the other authors were right because it would have been good news to finally solve the problem." The new study was published March 6, 2008, in the Astrophysical Journal Letters."

Thats is very interesting and standard plasma physics.

[Third Eye Open]

FINALLY! The TRUTH will be revealed! Plasma and electricity are teh awesome, and the Big Bang's big ugly face is a dumb as a butt!

[Ysidro]

Just a probe? And here I was hoping NASA was planning on walking on sunshine. Yeah. Walking on sunshine. Whoa oh.

And don't it feel good?

[DoubtingStephen]

This is really hot news!

[ParanoidAndroid]

NASA plans a lot more than they do; the plan is irrellivant.

Even if they go through with it, they'll likely discover little but that...it's like a heat wave.