We have finally managed to touch the sun. A new dawn in humanity?

Hello web wanderers, have you ever wondered a man made instrument touching the sun. As a kid it would have been a fantasy but as we grow up, reality started to dawn upon us and it kept seeming impossible in reality and more suitable for a science fiction skit. But it was about a couple of days ago that I came across this news and I was dumbstruck to see that my childhood fantasies were actually being realized. So, lets delve right in and understand how exactly we have managed to touch the sun. Firstly we'll discuss about the mission in detail. Then we'll see as to how the probe survived the high temperature. And finally we'll shed some light upon it's findings and it's significance to humanity. Lets go..

PARKER PROBE :- THE MISSION 

Its been about six decades since the inception and the planning about this seemingly unfeasible mission of touching the sun. And finally 3 years after the launch NASA's Parker Probe have reportedly entered the sun's atmosphere.

Unlike the interior planets, the sun isn't solid but a huge ball of plasma. The solar particles held by the sun's gravitational and magnetic fields making it's atmosphere is known as the Corona. And the boundary is know as the Alfven critical surface. The particles away from the reach of these fields flows out of the sun as solar wind.

During the 8th orbit of the probe around the sun, the probe observed the Corona through WISPR images and also observed the magnetic fields. The Corona is not clearly observable and the radius of the Corona was never confirmed. But thanks to the Parker Probe it was observed to be around 18.8 solar radii. also the boundary of the Corona was found to be wiggly rather than being uniform.

HOW DID IT WITHSTAND THE HARSH SOLAR CONDITIONS?

The temperature of the Corona is estimated to be about a million degree Fahrenheit. Firstly, there is a heat shield attached to the probe, to protect it from the solar particles. The shield is made up of Carbon-Carbon as the exterior and Carbon foam as the inner layer. This is programmed to adjust itself automatically in case it is distorted. Secondly, there is a  cooling system which circulates water to keep the system cool.

 Also, the density of plasma is very low in there. Heat refers to the transfer of energy where as temperature is the degree of measuring the hotness or coolness of a body. Until and unless there is a heat transfer, even though the temperature is high, the body will be unaffected. The low number of plasma particles can be dealt with and until the particles actually touch the probe, it'll remain unaffected.

SIGNIFICANCE 

Knowing more about the sun will help us know more about other stars in general. It'll help us know more about our solar system. Well, that was kind of vague. Let's be more specific now. Firstly, we need to know more about the solar winds as they are found to disrupt the satellites. Knowing more about it's origin will help us understand about the phenomena more. Questions such as the wiggly border of corona and the high temperature of the solar wind will be tried to be answered. 

There are something known as switchbacks which is the disturbance that causes magnetic field to bend in a weird and abrupt way. Scientists had no idea about the reason causing the switchbacks. But the Parker Probe has tracked in to the origin of such switchbacks. Still many questions about the switchbacks remain unanswered which might get answered in the near future as the voyage of the Parker probe continues.

If we manage to understand about the only life supporting star in our observation. We might as well head towards finding life away from earth.

REFERENCES     

I was hugely inspired by the articles and videos created by NASA as a reference, while writing this. I have included some of their ideas that I found interesting in this article. The links are mentioned below, in case you want to learn more deeply.

NASA Enters the Solar Atmosphere for the First Time, Bringing New Discoveries 

NASA's Parker Solar Probe Touches The Sun For The First Time   

How NASA's Parker Solar Probe Will Survive the Sun