NASA s Parker Solar Probe uncovers new data on Venus atmosphere
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May 3 (UPI) A radio signal detected NASA s Parker Solar Probe flew through Venus upper atmosphere, uncovering the first new data in nearly 30 years, a study showed Monday.
The study, published Monday in Geophysical Research Letters, was based on NASA s Parker Solar Probe s third Venus flyby on July 11, 2020.
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During the third flyby, the probe detected a natural, low-frequency radio signal, showing the spacecraft had flown through Venus electrically charged upper atmosphere, called the ionosphere, and helping scientists with the first direct measurement of its atmosphere in nearly 30 years, SciTechDaily reported.
Western Slope Skies By Jeremy Stringfield
Credit NASA
You’ve heard the warning; “Don’t play with fire unless you want to get burned.” This is good advice that has prevented many singed eyebrows and painful blisters. NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has ignored this warning in the most extreme fashion.
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Currently 2 years into its 7-year mission, it has already made several of 24 orbits around our closest star. Eventually, it will travel closer to the surface than any other mission. The Helios 2 spacecraft has held the record since 1976 when it came within 27 million miles. At its closest, the car-sized Parker Probe will be within 4 million miles of the Sun’s surface and within its atmosphere.
What is the solar wind?
The surface of the sun is blisteringly hot at 6,000 degrees Fahrenheit but its atmosphere, called the corona, is more than a thousand times hotter. It is also incredibly active; those flares and loops are the halo you see around the sun when there’s an eclipse.
Animation courtesy of NASA
The corona is so hot that the sun’s gravity can’t hold it, so particles are flung off into space and travel throughout the solar system in every direction. As the sun spins, burns and burps, it creates complex swirls and eddies of particles. These particles, mostly protons and electrons, are traveling about a million miles per hour as they pass Earth.
NASA s latest image of Venus taken by the Parker Solar Probe. Using Venus s gravity, the Parker Probe will circle our host star seven times while getting closer and closer over the course of seven years. (Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Laboratory/Guillermo Stenborg and Brendan Gallagher)
by Elizabeth Gamillo/Smithsonianmag.com
The dense atmosphere shrouding Venus with toxic sulfuric yellow clouds has made the planet’s surface difficult, but not impossible to peer through. On its mission toward the Sun, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe captured a striking image of Venus that unexpectedly revealed features of the planet’s surface and atmosphere, reports Meghan Bartels for
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