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threefour | 4 years ago

If you’re curious why it won’t melt: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2018/traveling-to-the-s...

discuss

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Aachen|4 years ago

Relevant part: the capturing cups are of metals with high melting points, plus

> The corona through which Parker Solar Probe flies, for example, has an extremely high temperature but very low density. Think of the difference between putting your hand in a hot oven versus putting it in a pot of boiling water

And for the rest of the craft there is a highly reflective heat shield.

wongarsu|4 years ago

Also spending most of it's orbit pretty far away from the sun. You can move your hand though an open flame with no issues, but if you keep it in the flame it will get burned.

mensetmanusman|4 years ago

I like to remind people that if you could suddenly create a mass of living bodies the size of the sun, it would have a higher power density :D

chengiz|4 years ago

Not sure I get the oven analogy. If I stick my hand in for a few seconds, sure, but if I was in the oven, I'll burn and die there too.

t8e56vd4ih|4 years ago

are you saying this protects you from Corona? why isn't this in the news?

lordnacho|4 years ago

Basically not much heat is transferred because there's not many particles to do the transfer, like a hot oven.

What I didn't understand was the coolant. It's got to dump whatever heat it picks up somewhere? Just a big radiator?

HPsquared|4 years ago

The thing about space is, heat transfer is all radiative. The "dark" side of the probe, which is in its own shadow, faces the darkness of space (which is very cold indeed). Therefore you can put insulation on the side facing the sun, and a radiator on the dark side to remove any heat that gets through the insulation.

pcl|4 years ago

The article puts some numbers on it, as well:

> That means that while Parker Solar Probe will be traveling through a space with temperatures of several million degrees, the surface of the heat shield that faces the Sun will only get heated to about 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,400 degrees Celsius).

Denvercoder9|4 years ago

> It's got to dump whatever heat it picks up somewhere? Just a big radiator?

Yes. The absence of any medium in space makes radiating the only way to get rid of heat.