NEWS WORTHY

NASA's Parker Probe flies into the Sun's Corona.

I never thought I would ever hear something like that. Why doesn't the probe burn up? That is some thermal shield! NASA has come a long way baby, from the days of heat tiles that fall off.

You're overlooking the vast difference between temperature and heat: the corona may clock in at 1,000,000+K, but we still have a hard time creating vacuums that good on earth. So there isn't enough energy in the plasma Parker encounters to do it much harm before it can be radiated away.

The real issue Parker faces is intense sunlight - which will probably eventually damage the sun shield to the point where the spacecraft won't survive another trip. But the portion of the orbit spent that close to the Sun isn't very long, and things get to cool down again near aphelion, so that's some way off still.

cthia wrote:NASA's Parker Probe flies into the Sun's Corona.

I never thought I would ever hear something like that. Why doesn't the probe burn up? That is some thermal shield! NASA has come a long way baby, from the days of heat tiles that fall off.

Louis R wrote:You're overlooking the vast difference between temperature and heat: the corona may clock in at 1,000,000+K, but we still have a hard time creating vacuums that good on earth. So there isn't enough energy in the plasma Parker encounters to do it much harm before it can be radiated away.

The real issue Parker faces is intense sunlight - which will probably eventually damage the sun shield to the point where the spacecraft won't survive another trip. But the portion of the orbit spent that close to the Sun isn't very long, and things get to cool down again near aphelion, so that's some way off still.

cthia wrote:NASA's Parker Probe flies into the Sun's Corona.

I never thought I would ever hear something like that. Why doesn't the probe burn up? That is some thermal shield! NASA has come a long way baby, from the days of heat tiles that fall off.

Indeed. It is being discussed in various places on the net. It is just that once upon a time I would never have guessed there would be a probe sent inside the Sun's Corona to actually investigate.

Probably not as bad as my early thinking in grade school that the core of the sun was solid.

The Sky is Falling

The ISS Space Station controlled crash landing. I don't actually feel good about phrases like "We think" or "Little danger."

The damn thing is the size of a football field and weighs in at 431 tons. It used to be a joke that the sky is falling. Progress.

The moon is our new landfill

Now Elon Musk's rocket is going to crash into the moon. The man has barely been on the scene and is already trashing the moon.

cthia wrote:The moon is our new landfill

Now Elon Musk's rocket is going to crash into the moon. The man has barely been on the scene and is already trashing the moon.

I think the Soviets beat Musk by 60+ years for that with NASA a close second...

Joat42 wrote:

cthia wrote:The moon is our new landfill

Now Elon Musk's rocket is going to crash into the moon. The man has barely been on the scene and is already trashing the moon.

I think the Soviets beat Musk by 60+ years for that with NASA a close second...

And shame on all three of them. But my point is that Musk has barely been playing in the sandbox and he is already spilling sand. Is the moon destined to become a landfill?

cthia wrote:The moon is our new landfill

Now Elon Musk's rocket is going to crash into the moon. The man has barely been on the scene and is already trashing the moon.

Joat42 wrote:I think the Soviets beat Musk by 60+ years for that with NASA a close second...

cthia wrote:And shame on all three of them. But my point is that Musk has barely been playing in the sandbox and he is already spilling sand. Is the moon destined to become a landfill?

Seems it's not a SpaceX rocket, it's apparently Chinese.

cthia wrote:The moon is our new landfill

Now Elon Musk's rocket is going to crash into the moon. The man has barely been on the scene and is already trashing the moon.

TBH - I'm more concerned about his vast fleet of nasty little starlink satellites

isaac_newton wrote:

cthia wrote:The moon is our new landfill

Now Elon Musk's rocket is going to crash into the moon. The man has barely been on the scene and is already trashing the moon.

TBH - I'm more concerned about his vast fleet of nasty little starlink satellites

I share that concern. It is getting rather crowded up there, with debris as well as satellites. If an intentional crash landing of the ISS doesn't cause concern in that area, I don't know what will.

Why do I keep thinking about the old classic, The Wizard of Oz when the house fell on the witch's head?

At least the Chinese have deployed a garbage collector. And it looks like other countries will follow their lead. FWIW.