Posted on 01/28/2020 5:30:57 PM PST by BenLurkin
In collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), the team is launching the Solar Orbiter that will use Venus's and Earth's gravity to swing itself out of the ecliptic plane — the area of space aligned with the sun's equator, where all planets orbit.
From this position, the craft will feast its eyes on the first-ever look of the massive yellow dwarf star, which will provide scientists with better data to predict solar storms more accurately.
Solar Orbiter is equipped with a custom-designed titanium heat shield coated with a specific phosphate that withstands temperatures over 900 degrees Fahrenheit, allowing it to get within 26 miles of the blazing sun.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
What is 26 miles even? There is no distinct border of the sun. It undulates and seethes like a boiling pot.
The number is most likely to be 26 MILLION miles. At 26 miles, it’s a fair bit hotter than 900 degrees. The temperature is around 10,000 degrees at that range.
I hope it works, but I have great respect for how hot it must be 26 miles from the surface of Sol.
Gee, you mean they couldn’t buy a titanium heat shield for a solar observatory satellite off the shelf? Who knew?
So it is somehow going to be going fast enough to just buzz the Sun, and not get pulled in by it’s massive gravitational pull?
There is no way it can get 26 miles from the sun without falling into the sun. I don’t think.
Your gonna’ get something only 26M away without it melting? Really?
Sounds incorrect.
Ah, thank you. I’m no astrophysicist, but my gut instinct when I read this was that, 26 miles out from the sun, withstanding “temperatures over 900 degrees Fahrenheit” is a woefully inadequate joke.
That sounds a whole lot more like it, the Mail was just a tad off.
https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Solar_Orbiter
https://www.space.com/solar-orbiter-mission-sun-poles.html
From NASA: “Over the mission’s seven year lifetime, Solar Orbiter will reach an inclination of 24 degrees above the Sun’s equator, increasing to 33 degrees with an additional three years of extended mission operations. At closest approach the spacecraft will pass within 26 MILLION MILES of the Sun.”
It’s okay tho: it’s the Daily Mail so we’re lucky it didn’t attribute the mission to Khloe Kardashian’s butt or Brad Pitt’s abs.
Probably just a minor rounding error.
“ The heat must be incredible.”
It’s not so bad in winter.
Make sure to use sunscreen. SPF 10,000,000
“allowing it to get within 26 miles of the blazing sun.”
Total crap reporting by an reporter most ignorant of science.
The atmosphere of the sun extends thousands of miles. If one was within 26 miles of the surface of the sun atmospheric drag would destroy the satellite as it would then descend into the sun long before it was 26 miles from the surface. The surface of the sun is a debate. What is the surface and what is atmosphere? Much like Jupiter, a gas giant as is our sun.
I would be so bold as to say the sun had no definitive surface. It is a gas giant that from its core of incredible density slowly decreases in density with distance from the core until it is really space with little influence by the sun relative to density. What we see when looking at the sun via telescopes is the ionized lower atmosphere surrounding the sun. To the layman this is the surface of the sun. It is not. There is no definitive surface of the sun.
I hate ignorant reporters.
They were only off by 26,999,974 miles. New math don’tcha know.
Give us MORE!
Give us MORE!
COMMIECORE!
More fake news caught by an observant reader.
LOL
“ The heat must be incredible.”
It’s not so bad in winter.
Make sure to use sunscreen. SPF 10,000,000
And at night just to be safe. I asked AOC.
Actually, the Sun is cooler at the "surface" compared to the Corona, thousands of miles above.
The sun will consider this AN ATTACK. Solar flares for a hundred years I predict.
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