NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Set for Historic Final Venus Flyby, Paving the Way for Closest Ever Solar Encounter.

Left: WISPR images of Venus' nightside from Parker Solar Probe's fourth flyby, showing near-infrared emissions from the surface, where lighter shades represent warmer temperatures. Right: A combined radar mosaic from NASA's Magellan mission, with brightness indicating surface smoothness (dark to light) and colors representing elevation (blue to red).

November 5, 2024 — On Wednesday, November 6, 2024, NASA's Parker Solar Probe will complete a crucial maneuver on its journey to the Sun, executing its final gravity assist flyby of Venus. Passing within just 233 miles (376 kilometers) of Venus' scorching surface, the spacecraft will adjust its trajectory, bringing it to within an unprecedented 3.86 million miles of the Sun’s surface on December 24, 2024 — the closest any human-made object has ever come to our star.

The Parker Solar Probe’s Venus flybys have proven invaluable for both solar and planetary science. During its third flyby in July 2020, Parker’s Wide-Field Imager (WISPR), originally designed to study the solar wind, made an unexpected discovery. Turning WISPR toward Venus for the first time, scientists were amazed to see the spacecraft’s instruments peer through Venus' thick cloud cover and capture images of the planet's surface below, revealing new insights into its geology.

"The WISPR cameras can see through the clouds to the surface of Venus, which glows in the near-infrared because it’s so hot,” said Noam Izenberg, a space scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, which manages the Parker mission.

With Venus' surface scorching at nearly 869°F (465°C), the heat radiates through the thick clouds, and WISPR's data—capturing visible and near-infrared light—has allowed scientists to glimpse surface features in unprecedented detail. The 2020 and 2021 flybys uncovered new surface patterns, with some areas appearing unexpectedly brighter, sparking further questions about the composition of Venus’ surface.

The upcoming November 6 flyby will help scientists answer these questions. By passing over various landforms, Parker will provide new context to evaluate whether WISPR’s data could reveal chemical or physical differences in Venus’ surface—such as variations in age or differences in material composition. This final flyby will provide key information, deepening our understanding of Venus’ complex and inhospitable surface.

Following the flyby, Parker will continue its journey toward the Sun, with its closest approach, or perihelion, set for December 24, 2024. At that point, Parker will come within just 3.86 million miles of the Sun’s surface, making history as the closest any spacecraft has ever come to a star. This will mark the culmination of a mission first conceived more than 65 years ago.

"Parker Solar Probe’s journey will allow us to explore regions of space never before studied, passing through plumes of plasma directly connected to the Sun," said Adam Szabo, project scientist for Parker at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. "This is a major engineering accomplishment, and the data we will gather will transform our understanding of the Sun and its influence on the solar system."

During this ultra-close pass, Parker will be so close to the Sun that it will pass through solar eruptions and solar wind streams, providing critical data about the Sun's corona and how solar phenomena affect space weather that can impact Earth. Parker will remain in this new orbit for the rest of its mission, completing two additional perihelion passages at the same distance.

The Parker Solar Probe mission is part of NASA’s Living with a Star program, designed to explore the Sun-Earth system and its effects on our planet. Managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and operated by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, Parker Solar Probe has already provided groundbreaking data, and its final approach to the Sun will unlock even more secrets of our star.

Key Dates:

Nov. 6, 2024: Parker Solar Probe completes its final Venus flyby.

Dec. 24, 2024: Parker Solar Probe makes its closest approach to the Sun.

Dec. 27, 2024: Parker Solar Probe will send a beacon signal confirming its health and mission success.

This mission continues to push the boundaries of space exploration, marking another milestone in humanity’s quest to understand the Sun and its profound impact on our world.

Comments

In the triple-star system, KOI-5Ab is seen orbiting the primary star...

KOI-5Ab continues to be a topic of discussion for researchers, as koi-5Ab has been seen orbiting the primary Star, confirming it has also been announced. koi-5ab revolves around the primary star, it was thought to be a planet half the size of Saturn in a planetary system, and was the only other planet candidate to be detected by the KOI-5Ab mission. Kepler mission operations were initiated by NASA in 2009, by the end of spacecraft operations in 2018, the Kepler spacecraft had discovered 2,394 exoplanets, or planets orbiting stars beyond our sun, and about 2,366 exoplanets such There are also those, which are still to be confirmed. David Ciardi, chief scientist at NASA's Exoplanet Science Institute, says the KOI-5AB was abandoned, because it was complicated, and we had thousands of candidates, and we were learning something new every day from Kepler, so that the KOI Mostly forgot to -5. KOI-5Ab is part of the Triple Star system, where KOI-5 is a group of three st...

NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope will be closed.

NASA briefly informed that the Spitzer Space Telescope will be permanently discontinued on January 30, 2020. After about 16 years of discovering the universe in light energy. And by that time, the space shuttle has been working for more than 11 years beyond its prime mission, Spitzer examines the universe's various objects in infrared light. It was in 2003 through the rocket that the American Space Research Organization NASA entered the space and entered the orbit around the Earth. Spitzer rotates the sun on a path similar to that of the Earth but it runs a bit slower. Today it is about 158 million miles (254 million kilometers) away from our planet - more than 600 times the distance between Earth and Moon. The spacing of Spitzer's orbit curve means that when the spacecraft indicates its fixed antenna on the earth to download data or receive commands, its solar panels tend to lean away from the sun. During those periods, to operate the space shut...

SpaceX is launching its next dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX is preparing for its next mission, very soon Spacex will launch the Dragon Spacecraft with its Falcon 9 Rocket. SpaceX is the 18th commercial reproduction service mission, dragon spacecraft will be loaded with dozens of experiments made in space. Launch date: Sunday, July 21, 2019 at 7:35 pm International Space Station (ISS) us The National Laboratory SpaceX's dragon is giving a finalization to more than two dozen payloads for launch in a circular circular laboratory. Many of these payloads are aimed at improving human health on the earth, many of which are focused on drug development. In addition, a series of payloads from identified private sector partners will be launched on this mission. More than 40 student experiments and demonstrations have been included on the 18th Commercial Recepti Services Mission (CRS-18) of SpaceX. One part of ISS American National Laboratory's goal is to encourage and engage next generation scientists. ...

NASA's review of the flight design of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope successfully confirmed.

Critical design work for the NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope has been completed, and the design analysis has also been successfully completed, indicating that all design and developmental engineering work is now complete. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is being managed at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, along with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech/IPAC in Southern California, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and a science stream consisting of various scientists team is involved. After an analysis of extensive hardware testing and sophisticated modeling, an independent review panel confirms that the observatory we used, said Julie McEnery, senior project scientist for the Roman Space Telescope at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Ready, it will work. Julie McNairy says of the Roman Space Telescope, what we know, what it will look like, and what it is capable of doing, and now th...

SpaceX,Dragon Cargo Returns Mission in Pacific ends with SplashDown

SpaceX dragon cargo spaceship dropped at 5:48 pm in the Pacific Ocean. The EDT (2:48 p.m. PDT) is located approximately 202 miles southwest of Long Beach, California, which is located at the end of the company's 17th contracted Cargo Resipulli mission for NASA. Spacecraft returned more than 4,200 pounds for other valuable scientific uses. Some scientific investigations of Dragon's return to Earth include: Overview of protein crystals growth, in the ...

A cluster of three galaxies was imaged with the help of the Hubble telescope's camera.

Using the Hubble Telescope's Advanced Camera (ACS) and Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3), a cluster of three galaxies was imaged. As shown in the image, the two galaxies have merged, scientists say, just as the two galaxies in the upper right appear to be interacting with each other, it is, in fact, stars. Its long trails and the gas spreading from both of them gives the impression that these two have just collided with each other very fast. In the lower left of the image is the bowling-ball-sized galaxy. Scientists say that the interaction between two galaxies occurs over a long time period, however, rarely will the galaxies collide with each other. These galaxies are so close to each other in space that they form a cluster, which scientists have named NGC 7764A. The mass between these galaxies has caused the formation of a shape at the end that, from the point of view of our solar system, resembles the starship known as the USS Enterprise from Star Trek. This gr...

Search This Blog