For several years, the Parker probe of the NASA studies our sun as closely as possible, with the aim of better understanding its cycles and creating models to anticipate solar flares which sometimes have harmful consequences on our Earth, or rather our equipment present around and on the Earth.
Launched in 2018, the probe is specially equipped to withstand the extreme temperatures of the sun. It thus multiplies its passages around the sun and prepares a dive which could also signal the end of the mission.
The probe will thus dive towards the sun to try to cross its outer layers, 6.1 million kilometers of its surface. NASA explains that with a little luck, the probe could emerge in one piece from this maneuver to send us new data on the conditions of this never-before-studied area.
With this maneuver, experts hope to finally be able to identify the birthplace of solar winds.
This upper solar atmosphere is an extreme zone: the solar corona is a zone in which charged plasma particles subject to powerful magnetic fields swirl. The area in question is also hotter than the surface of the star even with an average temperature of 1.2 million degrees Celsius (compared to 10,000 degrees below the crown).
Scientists believe that it is the solar corona which is the source of the solar wind and not its surface. It remains to be seen whether the Parker probe will succeed in emerging from this area unscathed. In all cases, the probe has reached the end of its program, it has even, as is often the case, exceeded its initial goal.
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