NASA poised to launch first Sun-skimming spaceship

[Remarkableriots]

 

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NASA is poised to launch a $1.5 billion spacecraft on a brutally hot journey toward the Sun, offering scientists the closest-ever view of our strange and mysterious star.

After the Parker Solar Probe blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida on August 11, it will become the first spacecraft ever to fly through the Sun's scorching atmosphere, known as the corona.

Understanding how the corona works will help scientists anticipate dangerous space weather storms, which can disrupt the power grid on Earth.

"It's of fundamental importance for us to be able to predict space weather much the way we predict weather on Earth," explained Alex Young, a solar scientist at NASA.

The corona is a "very strange, unfamiliar environment for us."

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-08-nasa-poised-sun-skimming-spaceship.html#jCp

[legend]

NASA is so fucking cool. It's one of the few remaining symbols of america that's positive.

[MarSolo]

Trump: “Can we get them to land on the sun at nighttime?”

[GeneticBlueprint]

This is pretty cool but the movie is overrated.

[Jason]

So our first contact is going to be with the Cardassians?

[TwinIon]

Very cool.