NASA is preparing to send a probe closer to the Sun than any other spacecraft has ventured, enduring wicked heat while zooming through the solar corona to study this outermost part of the stellar atmosphere that gives rise to the solar wind.
The Parker Solar Probe, a robotic spacecraft the size of a small car, is slated to launch from Cape Canaveral in Florida, with Aug. 6 targeted as the launch date for the planned seven-year mission. It is set to fly into the Sun’s corona within 6.1 million km from the solar surface, seven times closer than any other spacecraft.
“To send a probe where you haven’t been before is ambitious. To send it into such brutal conditions is highly ambitious,” Nicola Fox, a project scientist from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, told a news conference on July 20.
Photo: AP
照片：美聯社
The previous closest pass to the Sun was by a probe called Helios 2, which in 1976 came within 43 million km. By way of comparison, the average distance from the Sun for Earth is 150 million km.
The corona gives rise to the solar wind, a continuous flow of charged particles that permeates the solar system. Unpredictable solar winds cause disturbances in our planet’s magnetic field and can play havoc with communications technology on Earth. NASA hopes the findings will enable scientists to forecast changes in Earth’s space environment.
“It’s of fundamental importance for us to be able to predict this space weather, much like we predict weather here on Earth,” said Alex Young, a solar scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. “In the most extreme cases of these space weather events, it can actually affect our power grids here on Earth.” The project, with a US$1.5 billion price tag, is the first major mission under NASA’s Living With a Star program.
The probe is set to use seven Venus flybys over nearly seven years to steadily reduce its orbit around the Sun, using instruments designed to image the solar wind and study electric and magnetic fields, coronal plasma and energetic particles. NASA aims to collect data about the inner workings of the highly magnetized corona.
The probe, named after American solar astrophysicist Eugene Newman Parker, will have to survive difficult heat and radiation conditions. It has been outfitted with a heat shield designed to keep its instruments at a tolerable 29°C even as the spacecraft faces temperatures reaching nearly 1,370°C at its closest pass.
(Reuters)
美國國家航空暨太空總署準備發射一台探測器，把它送到比任何太空船還要接近太陽的探險距離。探測器必須一面忍耐惡毒的高溫，一面穿越太陽日冕，藉以研究這顆恆星產生太陽風的大氣最外層。
帕克太陽探測器是一台尺寸如小型車的機器人太空船，預計將從佛羅里達州的卡納維爾角發射，目標發射日期為八月六日，從此啟動這項計畫為期七年的任務。探測器預定將飛入太陽日冕中，距離恆星表面少於六百一十萬公里，比其他太空船到達的距離近了七倍。
在七月二十日的記者會上，約翰霍普金斯大學應用物理實驗室的專案科學家尼可拉‧福克斯表示：「把探測器送到你不曾去過的地方，已經相當具企圖心。要把它送到那麼殘酷的條件底下，此舉更是充滿雄心壯志。」
先前最接近太陽的距離是由太陽神二號所創，這台探測器在一九七六年飛到距離太陽四千三百萬公里的範圍內。相較之下，太陽到地球的平均距離為一億五千萬公里。
日冕會產生太陽風，是一種持續性的帶電粒子流，瀰漫在太陽系中。無法預測的太陽風會擾亂我們星球的磁力場，讓地球上的通訊系統陷入大混亂。美國太空總署希望新發現將能讓科學家得以預測地球的太空環境變化。
太陽科學家艾利克斯‧楊表示：「對我們而言，能夠預測太空天氣具有關鍵的重要性，就像是我們預測地球上的天氣一樣。」艾利克斯‧楊目前任職於美國太空總署位於馬里蘭州的戈達太空飛行中心，他補充指出：「在這些太空天氣事件中，最極端的情況真的會對我們地球上的電力系統帶來影響。」這份研究是美國太空總署「與恆星共存」計畫下的第一份重要任務，斥資高達十五億美元。
這台探測器預計耗費將近七年的時間，藉由七次繞飛金星，穩定縮短以太陽為中心的繞行軌道。探測器將會使用設計讓太陽風成像的儀器，並研究其電場、磁場、日冕電漿，以及能量粒子等。美國太空總署目的在於蒐集資料，以了解高度磁力化的日冕內部運作機制。
以美國太陽天體物理學家尤金‧紐曼‧帕克命名的這台探測器，將必須在嚴苛的高溫與輻射條件中存活下來。它的外層裝配了抵抗高溫的保護罩，就算太空船會在最接近太陽時面臨高達將近攝氏一千三百七十度的高溫，保護罩也能讓儀器溫度維持在能夠忍受的攝氏二十九度。
（台北時報章厚明譯）
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