Parker Solar Probe set for blisteringly hot date with the Sun on Christmas Eve NASA's Parker Solar Probe is scheduled to make its closest approach yet to the Sun, approximately 3.8 million miles from the star's surface, on Christmas Eve. "No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory," said Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe …
The Sun doesn't really have a surface or radius, it's just a big cloud of gas that gradually fizzles out rather than having a hard edge. The surface or edge you see when you look at the sun is essentially a trick of the light, it is simply where the density of the gas becomes high enough for it to turn opaque - there is no physical transition there. It's a bit of a stretch but you can make a coherent argument that Earth is actually inside the Sun.
Even at that distance the probe is within the outer wisps of the solar atmosphere, that is what it is actually measuring. Kudos to the team for being able to model this since that atmospheric drag must surely be non-negligible. Although it's probably a help in this instance, at these kinds of distances the problem tends to be getting rid of orbital energy.
> Haha. A downvote
Well, the Sun is just a luminary that is no more than 3,000 miles above the disc of the Earth, so that the greys can hide behind it whilst they are observing us. Obviously this is all just a false flag operation by NASA and Big Solar to keep the sheeple under control!
Anyway, it was too expensive and Elon is going to do far more cheaply *and* he'll catch one of the flying saucers in his chopsticks to prove to us that space is all a fake and the so-called stars are just a giant backdrop that Kubrick painted in 1969.
Another little yellow pill? Don't mind if I do.
Sadly, there are a lot of people out there that believe this sort of shite.
I am working with someone, luckily not closely or I would have walked off the job, who not only thinks the world is flat but is religious and claims all this bollocks about the sun being a few miles away within some dome, no proof needed, his god said so. Gravity, speed of light, eclipses, weather - no - his sky fairy states that this is nonsese so he believes it. In a just world he would be out of a job and unable to eat and breed - Darwinism as it was called but we keep him alive for no fucking reason other than to dumb down the gene pool.
When you look at the brilliance of the engineers throughout NASA and the other space agencies you have to wonder why the fuck are we going backwards. Again, in a just world, all the anti vax morons would be the ones that die out rather than normal people dying through the increase in curable diseases beng allowed to strengthen.
I somehow doubt things will improve in the next 4 years.
"Again, in a just world, all the anti vax morons would be the ones that die out rather than normal people dying through the increase in curable diseases beng allowed to strengthen.’
Actually I think you just need to give it time, things don’t happen quickly, in general. Anti-vaxers, statistically and preferentially will, absolutely will, die off quicker. It may just take a couple of generations!
It is indeed incredible and we will almost certainly get more new and interesting data about our planet's home star. While the Parker probe does have radiation hardened components, it will be interesting to see if any damage has ocurred from this close encounter.
Downvotes! Anyone who's got a problem with the American Spelling should checkout the following article - the background to the change is within the first few paragraphs.
https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/22/chrome_extension_howto/
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An orbit is only one year at the distance Earth is.
Mercury takes 88 days to orbit because it's closer.
The Parker Probe on Winkipedia
It will approach to within 9.86 solar radii (6.9 million km or 4.3 million miles)[7][8] from the center of the Sun, and by 2025 will travel, at its closest approach, as fast as 690,000 km/h (430,000 mph) or 191 km/s, which is 0.064% the speed of light.[7][9] It is the fastest object ever built on Earth.
It's on a very elliptical orbit of about 88 to 89 days
See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Animation_of_Parker_Solar_Probe_trajectory.gif
Green = Mercury
Cyan = Venus
Dark blue = Earth
Violet = Parker probe.
Firstly - whooosh!
Secondly - that must be new fangled simple talk for the young people: we always used to be told that a year on Mars is longer than a year on Earth, lasting so many Martian days[1] which is equivalent to soany days on Earth, and a year on Pluto is so very much longer than that...
Because a year for any planet is measured against the "fixed stars" and the position of the local star with respect to them. No matter which planet, no matter which stellar system.
[1] yes, I am aware that nowadays we use the word "sols" to mean local days on Mars[2], but as not even your reference provides an alternative word for a Martian year...
[2] and I'm waiting for the confusion when we get a long-lived probe, preferably a rover, on a few other bodies and people get confused because now "sols" means something different then. Come to think of it, have you ever heard anyone talking about Lunar Sols? Although, with all the twaddle that "dark side" means "far side" just because of a popular music album. Rant. Mutter. Going back to chat with the local AstroSoc, they've all got their heads screwed on properly.
Best PSP stays away from molten Bramley apple pies after 8 minutes in the microwave.
Aside from (attempting) to make nerdish jokes, it is useful - nay, important - to use the words "day" and "year", without any extra qualifiers, to refer to local conditions and not assume - most definitely not try to enforce - solely use as "Earth Day/Year".
Days and years refer to cycles, natural phenomena that determine "what life is like" on a planet: day/night cycle, seasons - as well as observable objects, should the place be blessed with life. And it needn't be "intelligent" life: examples we do have show that organisms at every level can/do react to these cycles, so it is feasible that others will as well.
When just discussing casually, saying that in this location the year is longer than the day allows you to get across the idea that all seasons will be experienced in one day/night cycle. Far more easily than trying to calculate back into equivalent Terrestrial terms and then figuring out what the numbers mean.
If you do wish to use Earth units without bothering to specify, then hours/minutes/seconds are usefully abstract units for measuring durations.
Or just do the extra typing and state what your referents are: a day on Mars takes the same time as one Earth Day, plus 37 minutes.
Dunno where such would be available off-the-shelf. You can, however, get software to show Mars time without much difficulty. There is associated documentation on how to convert UTC to/from Mars time (alternative explanation of the algorithm also provided here, and my implementation in C here.) I could imagine the algorithm could be implemented on an open-source smartwatch without too much trouble.
> I still want one of the JPL Mars team watches that measures in Martian days.
When I was a boy, we was told that a standard Earth clock (or watch) could probably be tweaked to Martian days, the difference is so small.
And popular-price mechanical timepieces were that imprecise those days. Usually the balance spring was plenty long, a dingus like a guitarist's capo shortened the working length to speed for Earth. Let it all the way out and it may be near Mars rate. Or hack: solder-blobs will slow the wheel. Pendulum clocks, cut/splice the pendulum longer and whack a slot in the bottom of the case to clear.
Accutron (tuning fork) and then Quartz gave us timepieces that could not be mis-regulated, or not much.
Get a fine old Bulova and a smart watch-tech, Mars-rate should be easy.
Image:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/tWQAAOSwfZBnI4Qy/s-l1600.webp
No - A unit conversion should not have more significant figures than the original value.*
So
3,800,000 miles is equivalent to 6,100,000 km
430,000 mph is equivalent to 690,000 km/h
Note the use of "equivalent" as opposed to "equals"
* Yes, a zero can be a significant figure but it's not in this case.
>A unit conversion should not have more significant figures than the original value.
Such claim is clearly wrong, considering converting 1 mile (there is no decimal places in round numbers) to km - as 1 mile is defined to be *exactly* 1609.344 m (or 1.609344 km), but according to such claim, it should be written that 1 mile is equivalent to 1 km?
There was some accuracy lost as the original unit was converted from a SI unit to a US customary unit (defined based off SI units) and rounded, but it would be an error to round again, as that would cause yet more accuracy loss.
I reiterate: "a zero can be a significant figure"
So "Exactly" a mile is 1.609344 km but that refers to a mile measured to a tiny fraction of an inch which is very rarely the case. In general usage, about a mile is about 1.6 km.
It is all about using the correct degree of accuracy that the situation needs and provides. In this case the spacecraft is obviously not going at exactly 430,000mph but approximately 430,000 mph so the conversion should have the same degree of approximation.
Adding significant figures where there are none to add is implied accuracy and is really misleading.
So the late Mr. Parker would probably be very pleased to know that the shiny little toy named after him is ready to plunge in the Howlin (solar) Wind, thanks to the Heat Treatment it benefited, and while Squeezing out Sparks in Another (scientific) Grey Area and trying to answer Burning Questions, its Steady (electronic) Nerves will hopefully prevent it from being Struck by Lighting, for the Stupefaction of us mere mortals.
And all these prodigious achievements thanks to Venus courteously providing the Up Escalator free of charges.
Gra - a - hem.
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