NASA Planning Mission to Visit the Sun

By: Charles Cooper
Topics: In The News ,; Tech Talk

We know it's hot up there but NASA wants to know a bit more about the Sun and its environs. And so sometime before 2018, the agency intends to send a spacecraft into the solar atmosphere.

Artist Representation of Solar Probe Plus

(Credit: NASA)

This will mark the first time that a spacecraft from earth will actually visit a star.

The decision to chart a mission to the Sun also realizes a dream that astronomers almost realized a half century ago, when the National Academy of Science's "Simpson Committee" in 1958 recommended a probe to investigate. Several studies were subsequently carried out testing the feasibility of the project. But nothing came of them.

Since NASA has never sent any vehicle this close to Earth's Sun, the craft will have to be outfitted with a special shield designed to withstand radiation and temperatures exceeding 2550 degrees Fahrenheit. A spokesman for NASA said scientists will depend on simulations to guarantee that the probe can cope with that sort of intense heat.

Dick Fisher, who directs NASA's Heliophysics Division in Washington, said that the planned experiments would help resolve two key questions of solar physics. One is to explain why the sun's outer atmosphere is so much hotter than the sun's visible surface. (In the 1940s researchers discovered the corona's million-degree temperature.) The other is to find out more about how the solar wind that affects Earth and our solar system gets accelerated.

"We've been struggling with these questions for decades and this mission should finally provide those answers," according to Fisher.

Until now, observations of the Sun were recorded from flybys millions of miles away. But the Solar Probe Plus, as it's called, will get close enough so that scientists hope to learn more about the solar corona and the solar wind. In a recent report on a Sun probe, NASA scientists noted that while they may know more about the corona and solar wind than ever before, "the answers to these questions can be obtained only through in-situ measurements of the solar wind down in the corona."

Charles Cooper is an executive editor at CNET News. He has covered technology and business for more than 25 years, working at CBSNews.com, the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie.

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by Noval53 September 4, 2010 12:18 AM EDT

NASA's planned future programs are so excitng, interestin...yawn...zzzzzzzzzz.

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by NoWayJose9999 September 4, 2010 7:49 PM EDT: Hey, stupid, if not for science idiots like you wouldn't have a computer,or most modern conveniences that we take for granted.


by nyc_logic September 3, 2010 10:26 AM EDT: It would be interesting to see what they come up with for sheilding. A magnetic feild sheilding powered by the sun's own rays would be incredibly Star Treky.; Reply to this comment

by gruven13777 September 3, 2010 6:51 AM EDT

2550 degrees Fahrenheit? That's funny.

$100 says this thing incinerates before it gets halfway there.

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by servorum September 3, 2010 8:01 AM EDT: They could go at night when the Sun's a little cooler.

by Noval53 September 3, 2010 4:55 AM EDT

All this is nice, but let's stop making excuses why manned missions are going no where. NASA has become very comfortable flying a useless circle around the earth (like the space junk ISS for example); where there's little risk and little gain. It's been over 30 years since the last moon mission and NASA is so incompetent that it can't get there from here. No one will be impressed with a rocket blasting to the sun to gather more blah blah data, numbers, and facts. If you want the working man's support; you know, the guys that pay for this stuff; then do something exciting, dramatic, and with real men & women of adventure. Wake up NASA! You are boring us to death.

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by NoWayJose9999 September 4, 2010 7:51 PM EDT: Let's send Nova53 on a space probe. It would be the like the Soviets sending a chimp into space back in the '50's.....

by porcine_aviator September 2, 2010 8:29 PM EDT

This is tax money well spent.

All but a few of the unmanned probes have been wildly successful over the years. The scientific knowledge this will generate will be well worth a half billion dollar price tag.

As for naysayers, your arguments are simply wrong. Basic scientific research is needed in order for technology to advance - period. An obvious outcome of this research will be better models of stellar processes, and with it an increasingly accurate way to forecast solar flare activity (which might matter to you if you care at all about satellite communication, cable TV, weather satellites, satellite reconnaisance, etc.).

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by bradyobrien666 September 2, 2010 10:43 PM EDT: For example, better heat shields and radiation shields will be required for this probe and all of that research would be most likely used in manned missions to elsewhere.