Hmmmm. So, let's go exploring. Where to? Always a little dicey. Pick a point, discuss, then decide: why? What will it cost? Who will pay? In days gone by, royals paid for the trip(see Spain, Portugal, France, England, Belgium, Germany, and others). Today, there a few players, but the usual suspects: USA, China, Russya, and??? It costs quite a bit to launch some gravity -defying vehicle that must sustain itself during a long, cold voyage to the unexplored.
So, in 1958, scientists decided that we humans needed more knowledge of our "Star", aka the sun. As soon as technology arrives with the means, we'll go. The time is nigh; the launch is in one week, from the French space port pad. A multi-country vehicle will be put into orbit to look at the sun: the James Webb telescope, designed to replace the Hubble scope, its predecessor. The JW telescope will allow us to see things never seen, or even thought about. This anticipated mission will supplement the Parker Solar satellite, now visiting our sun.
N.A.S.A. launched the Parker probe recently. Its mission: to touch the sun! 1,000,000 degrees F! How is this done? Very carefully. After more than 10 years of planning, our scientists-astrophysicists, rocket engineers, etc., designed and built a probe that could "touch" the sun. In some ways, it is designed to put its"toe in the water". It will approach the sun's corona, gather information, then retreat to an external location beyond the heat that could destroy the vehicle. Heat shields are necessary, and even the heat shields have limits. But it has proven worthy to the task, and data is beaming back to earth. Data? What data?
How does the sun work? How is it similar to other "stars"? What fuels this object? And what are the characteristics of this particular object we are so dependent on for our lives? All good questions. Get ready for answers.
Have a nice day.
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