NASA Plans to Visit the Sun

[Fumesucker]

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2008/10jun_solarprobe.htm

The name of the mission is Solar Probe+ (pronounced "Solar Probe plus"). It's a heat-resistant spacecraft designed to plunge deep into the sun's atmosphere where it can sample solar wind and magnetism first hand. Launch could happen as early as 2015. By the time the mission ends 7 years later, planners believe Solar Probe+ will solve two great mysteries of astrophysics and make many new discoveries along the way.

<snip>

At closest approach, Solar Probe+ will be 7 million km or 9 solar radii from the sun. There, the spacecraft's carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures greater than 1400o C and survive blasts of radiation at levels not experienced by any previous spacecraft. Naturally, the probe is solar powered; it will get its electricity from liquid-cooled solar panels that can retract behind the heat-shield when sunlight becomes too intense. From these near distances, the Sun will appear 23 times wider than it does in the skies of Earth.

<snip>

Mystery #1—the corona: If you stuck a thermometer in the surface of the sun, it would read about 6000o C. Intuition says the temperature should drop as you back away; instead, it rises. The sun's outer atmosphere, the corona, registers more than a million degrees Celsius, hundreds of times hotter than the star below. This high temperature remains a mystery more than 60 years after it was first measured.

Mystery #2—the solar wind: The sun spews a hot, million mph wind of charged particles throughout the solar system. Planets, comets, asteroids—they all feel it. Curiously, there is no organized wind close to the sun's surface, yet out among the planets there blows a veritable gale. Somewhere in between, some unknown agent gives the solar wind its great velocity. The question is, what?

More at the link..

[Bicoastal]

1. To avoid the heat, they'll go at night.

(That one never gets old.)

[gvstn]

5. Haha! My first thought as well. :;

[pokerfan]

9. beat me to it (nt)

[panader0]

2. "Someday you and I will fly to the sun

and remember all the things we done..." 'One Together'--early Fleetwood Mac

[TomClash]

3. As Paris Hilton used to say

"Hot"

[HysteryDiagnosis]

4. >>This high temperature remains a mystery more than 60 years after it was first measured.

Mysteries persist for those who look through the binoculars large end first.

http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm

[laconicsax]

10. LOL!

Thanks for the link. It was very informative.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

11. Could be something.... could be nothing..... or it could be something

in between. :)

[meeshrox]

13. yes, or it could be a fiction writer...

using syintifical-sounding words to sound s-m-r-t...I wonder if the electrical current will suck the probe in or perhaps fry the electronics!
Do you have to add that link in every scientific thread?

:eyes: :crazy:

As for the original post, this is pretty cool...seeing the sun up close like that will give us more detail and resolution...

[HysteryDiagnosis]

14. My sig line should just about cover it. n't

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

17. Did you know that Gene Ray once gave a lecture at MIT?

Neither actually mean anything.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

18. Oh yes... but the people at Goddard Space Flight Center actually

listened and some of them even understood the material. That's different. It actually meant something. I'm sorry but you appear to have a limited grasp of this subject.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

20. Ummm, no.

People listened at MIT too, it still doesn't mean anything.

I fully grasp the subject.

Donald E. Scott and the rest of the Electric Universe buffoons are completely fucked in the head.

[meeshrox]

21. Well, it matters not to them, HFPS...

I'm still new at DU, but it seems that the science thread is full of this bullshit...if this forum is not safe from woo, then what is?

:cry:

[TZ]

32. You need a star to post but I bet you'll find this group interesting to read...

Pretty much woo free zone...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=247
:hi: Always happy to welcome another science loving person..

[meeshrox]

34. Yes, thanks...

I've been lurking there, so to speak, the last couple of days. I'll be acquiring my star later this week, after payday.
Thanks for the warm welcome, it's always great to meet science loving people! :toast:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

23. So you gave a lecture at Goddard Space Flight Center and

no one came. Pity.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

29. If I had, it'd still be less embarassing...

then subscribing to the electric universe baloney, and posting about it on the internet. Even anonymously.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

24. Goddard shouldn't let people who are screwed in the head into

their facility.


http://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/2009-Spring/announce.scott.html
ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, March 16, 2009 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

Donald E. Scott

"Plasma Physics' Answer to the New Cosmological Questions"

ABSTRACT -- It is becoming evident that the experimentally verifiable results of the last century of study of the plasma state of matter are applicable in the clarification of certain anomalous astronomical observations. The work of pioneers such as Birkeland, Langmuir, and Alfvén are briefly reviewed as examples of this. Some basics of the characteristics of both laboratory and cosmic plasma are included - such as the properties of double layers, plasma operating modes, and the causes of filamentation. Rotation profiles of spiral galaxies, pulsar emissions, magnetic reconnection, and the stability of neutron stars are discussed from the point of view of the known properties of plasmas and electromagnetic fields. The presentation attempts to motivate the realization that 'new science' should not be invoked unless and until all aspects of what we already know, including plasma physics and basic electromagnetism, have been exhaustively applied in the investigation of what appear to be astronomical anomalies.

SPEAKER -- Donald E. Scott earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Electrical Engineering at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT. Following graduation he worked for General Electric in Schenectady, NY (large steam turbine generators), and Pittsfield, MA. (lightning arresters). He earned a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, and was a member of the faculty of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst from 1959 until his retirement in 1998. During that time he was the recipient of several good-teaching awards. He was, at various times, Assistant Department Head, Director of the undergraduate program, Graduate admissions coordinator, and Director of the College of Engineering’s Video Instructional Program. In 1987, the McGraw-Hill Book Company published his 730-page textbook, An Introduction To Circuit Analysis - A Systems Approach. He has authored numerous scientific papers and chapters including two that will be published by the IEEE shortly. He is a lifelong amateur astronomer. Some of the author’s images of astronomical objects can be viewed at: http://members.cox.net/dascott2/ImageList.html (a non-government link).

Colloquium Committee Sponsor: Jan Kalshoven, NASA-GSFC (retired), 301/286-8506
Engineering Colloquium home page: http://ecolloq.gsfc.nasa.gov

[meeshrox]

25. Ok, this is getting ridiculous...and off-topic BTW...

The argument for electromagnetic forces in plasma acting on the surface of stars, etc. seems plausible...but this stuff you just posted is this guy's more mainstream-looking stuff. The electric sun/star crap is far-fetched and unfounded...

I read, and was very annoyed by, his description of stellar evolution and the H-R diagram...changing values on an axis and them drumming on about plasma this, blah, blah, plasma, blah is not evidence...it is all supposition. True, astronomers do not have a full picture, but filling it in with crap that doesn't fit otherwise does not hold. By supporting these claims, gravity and dark matter are thrown aside...not something that would get support on from someone like Mr. Hawking, I assume.

I completely love thinking outside the box, but this guy, and you, are thinking outside of the laws of physics. Period.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

27. .....

[meeshrox]

28. ....

:shrug:

[meeshrox]

19. It really means nothing...

as the spaghetti monster already said above...

Posting the same link over and over means nothing...it will never make your claim valid...take your woo out of the science forums...

[Posteritatis]

12. Taking crayons to the binoculars instead doesn't help much. (nt)

[HysteryDiagnosis]

15. You mean the pic of the star??

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

16. What's the charge of the sun?

If it's a big positively charged anode, what's the numeric value of that charge?

[Odin2005]

30. Well look who shows up, the resident crackpot.

:rofl:

[TZ]

31. Hmmph

I see scientific agencies are now listening to woo. Well even NIH has its own department of woo. But at least most of it was debunked by their own scientists. Maybe the respectable people at Goddard will debunk this crap too.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. Meh, it's just symposia.

Somebody holds a conference and anybody who wants to submit an abstract and pay the fee gets to present something. There are a few crackpots at all scientific conferences. If they don't actually weasel their way in like this guy they set up their posters out in the parking garage.

[htuttle]

6. Little by little the night turns around....

Counting the leaves which tremble and turn.
Lotus's lean on each other in union.
Over the hills where a swallow is resting.

Set the controls for the heart of the sun.

Over the mountain watching the watcher.
Breaking the darkness, waking the grapevine.
Morning to birth is born into shadow
Love is the shadow that ripens the wine.

Set the controls for the heart of the sun.
The heart of the sun, the heart of the sun.

Who is the man who arrives at the wall?
Making the shape of his questions at asking.
Thinking the sun will fall in the evening.
Will he remember the lesson of giving?

Set the controls for the heart of the sun.
The heart of the sun, the heart of the sun.

[Chulanowa]

7. "Thermal Shield"

Yeah, good luck there

[Fumesucker]

8. Probably designed for a high emissivity in the infrared..

The sun will only take up 12 degrees of the sky at closest approach, that leaves 160 plus into which heat can be radiated..

At closest approach, Solar Probe+ will be 7 million km or 9 solar radii from the sun. There, the spacecraft's carbon-composite heat shield must withstand temperatures greater than 1400o C and survive blasts of radiation at levels not experienced by any previous spacecraft. Naturally, the probe is solar powered; it will get its electricity from liquid-cooled solar panels that can retract behind the heat-shield when sunlight becomes too intense. From these near distances, the Sun will appear 23 times wider than it does in the skies of Earth

[meeshrox]

22. From the original website:

"Solar Probe+'s repeated plunges into the corona will be accomplished by means of Venus flybys. The spacecraft will swing by Venus seven times in six years to bend the probe’s trajectory deeper and deeper into the sun’s atmosphere. Bonus: Although Venus is not a primary target of the mission, astronomers may learn new things about the planet when the heavily-instrumented probe swings by."

WOW, would love to see that calculations for these orbital gymnastics...really smart people! My astronomy professor at USF worked on the calculations that helped the Voyager spacecraft navigate through the solar system...cool stuff!

[Ptah]

26. Oww!