{"id":63473,"date":"2021-05-03T15:24:04","date_gmt":"2021-05-03T19:24:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=63473"},"modified":"2021-05-03T15:24:04","modified_gmt":"2021-05-03T19:24:04","slug":"fastest-spaceship-ever-fast-approaching-the-sun-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/?p=63473","title":{"rendered":"Fastest Spaceship Ever Fast Approaching the Sun (Video)"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>How the Fastest Spaceship Ever Is Getting Terrifyingly Close to the Sun<\/h1>\n<h3>Adam Szabo and Betsy Congdon, two leads on the Parker Solar Probe, discuss the mission\u2019s discoveries and its daredevil future.<\/h3>\n<p>By Becky Ferreira<br \/>\nVICE<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Inside the Fastest Spaceship Ever Made | The Space Show\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/MegG5jFNRmQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The Sun is the most influential body in the solar system, a crucial driver of life on Earth, and an incredibly challenging object to actually explore up close. The famous myth of Icarus casts flying too close to the Sun as a metaphorical act of perilous hubris, but it\u2019s also literally difficult to send spacecraft to the region surrounding our star due to its intense radiation and energy.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what makes NASA\u2019s Parker Solar Probe, which launched in 2018, such a special and pioneering mission. Over the past few years in space, Parker has traveled closer to the Sun than any previous spacecraft, while also breaking the record for the fastest object of all time.<\/p>\n<div class=\"abc__tweety\" data-component=\"TweetyBlock\">\n<div>\n<div class=\"twitter-tweet twitter-tweet-rendered\"><iframe id=\"twitter-widget-0\" class=\"\" title=\"Twitter Tweet\" src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/embed\/Tweet.html?dnt=false&amp;embedId=twitter-widget-0&amp;features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfX0%3D&amp;frame=false&amp;hideCard=false&amp;hideThread=false&amp;id=1387793170184818690&amp;lang=en&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vice.com%2Fen%2Farticle%2Fxgxz9w%2Fhow-the-fastest-spaceship-ever-is-getting-terrifyingly-close-to-the-sun&amp;sessionId=5d98f8054d933574b079370a4c2c4d861f665dfc&amp;siteScreenName=vice&amp;theme=light&amp;widgetsVersion=82e1070%3A1619632193066&amp;width=550px\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-tweet-id=\"1387793170184818690\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Adam Szabo, mission scientist for Parker at NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center, noted that the agency\u2019s goal of exploring the Sun dates all the way back to 1958, the same year NASA was formally founded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are really excited that finally we\u2019ve reached the capability, in the United States, that we can put together such a mission to get as close to the Sun as possible,\u201d Szabo said in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=MegG5jFNRmQ&amp;ab_channel=Motherboard\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a Motherboard interview<\/a>\u00a0that included Betsy Congdon, lead thermal protection system engineer for Parker at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.<\/p>\n<p>The spacecraft can withstand conditions within the outer atmosphere of the Sun, called the corona, and it will eventually travel just 4.3 million miles from the star\u2019s center\u2014seven times closer than any previous mission.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne way to think about it is, if you put [Parker] on a football field with the Sun at one side and Earth at the other side, we\u2019re getting in the four-yard line,\u201d said Congdon. \u201cWe\u2019re getting in the Sun\u2019s corona, so it\u2019s very exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Parker is able to push these solar limits thanks to its sophisticated heat shield, which converts temperatures of 2,500\u00b0F on the Sun-face to a comfortable room temperature on the probe\u2019s shaded instrumentation side. The spacecraft is also equipped with solar panels that have cooling systems so that they can endure the difficult conditions around the Sun while also providing long-term power to the mission.<\/p>\n<p>As Parker continues to swing past the Sun in its close approaches, it will eventually reach an astonishing top speed of 430,000 miles per hour, fast enough to travel from New York to Los Angeles in about 20 seconds.<\/p>\n<p>The mission has already made interesting discoveries about the Sun during its passes, spotting curious\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en\/article\/evjj44\/nasas-solar-probe-found-tantalizing-evidence-of-rings-around-the-sun\">dust rings and \u201cmagnetic islands\u201d<\/a>\u00a0at the star. Eventually, the probe will shed light on the mysterious mechanism behind the Sun\u2019s solar wind, and the unexpectedly high temperature in the corona, compared to the solar surface. By studying the Sun up close, Parker will also yield insights about other star systems, including their potential habitability.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Sun is our star and the one that\u2019s closest to us, so as we understand it, we will understand many other stars,\u201d Congdon said. \u201cThat\u2019s really exciting and will change our view not only of our Sun, but of all stars.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>___<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en\/article\/xgxz9w\/how-the-fastest-spaceship-ever-is-getting-terrifyingly-close-to-the-sun\">https:\/\/www.vice.com\/en\/article\/xgxz9w\/how-the-fastest-spaceship-ever-is-getting-terrifyingly-close-to-the-sun<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How the Fastest Spaceship Ever Is Getting Terrifyingly Close to the Sun Adam Szabo and Betsy Congdon, two leads on the Parker Solar Probe, discuss the mission\u2019s discoveries and its daredevil future. By Becky Ferreira VICE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.co\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}