NASA’s Parker probe made its first dive into the Sun’s extended atmosphere. It took place on April 28, but the results were only presented last Tuesday (14), during a meeting of the American Geophysical Union. Obviously this is quite an achievement, but you may be wondering why.
In principle, scientific curiosity should be a sufficient answer, after all, as Galileo would say, “a head is made for thinking”. But in the case of the study of the Sun, it goes beyond that.
Our mother star, like all the others, has a very simple basic behavior. It is an immense ball of gas that fuses hydrogen atoms in its nucleus and, therefore, generates energy, emitted in the form of electromagnetic radiation – light. The devil, however, is in the details. And there’s a lot we don’t understand about them.
For example, the 11-year cycles, in which the Sun alternates between phases of greater and lesser activity, possibly superimposed on longer and more discrete ones. Or the details of the production of the solar wind, the stream of particles emanating from the star. Or the fact that the solar corona (the atmosphere) is much hotter (millions of degrees) than the photosphere (the “surface” at around 5,500°C). Or the processes that lead to solar flares, ejecting large amounts of matter into space.
We have reasonable sketches of how this all works, but not enough to create super-precise predictive models. And they are sorely lacking for us to be able to tell when solar flares are going to happen and where they are going to pass. Which, in turn, is essential to protecting our technological existence here on Earth.
Intense solar storms, when they come our way, can cause considerable damage to orbiting satellites or even ground-based electrical grids. They don’t directly threaten life, but they can do trillions of damage. And luckily, they don’t happen that often. Unfortunately, they are not very rare either.
So much so that we were even “drawn” once. It took place on September 2, 1859 and the episode was named the Carrington Event, in honor of the astronomer who identified the solar explosion that, 17 hours later, hit our planet. The most pleasing effect was intense auroras, colored lights that are normally limited to the poles, but were seen even close to the equator.
The most dramatic was the damage to telegraph systems around the world. Entitled to shorts, sparks, electric shocks to operators and other bizarre effects. At that time, very little was done with electricity. Today… just look around.
Preventing headaches would involve knowing in advance when something like this might happen again, which in turn involves improving our understanding of solar dynamics. Hence the motivation to send a probe to face the most challenging environment visited by a spacecraft to gather more data. Besides, of course, it’s fantastic.
This column is published on Mondays in Folha Corrida.
Follow Sidereal Messenger on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram e YouTube
.
