Solar Probe+ to Plunge Directly into Sun's Atmosphere

[monty slick]

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news...010/02sep_spp/

Sept. 2, 2010: NASA's daring plan to visit the sun took a giant leap forward today with the selection of five key science investigations for the Solar Probe+ spacecraft.

Slated to launch no later than 2018, the smart car-sized spacecraft will plunge directly into the atmosphere of the sun, aiming to solve some of the biggest mysteries of solar physics. Today's announcement means that researchers can begin building sensors for unprecedented in situ measurements of the solar system's innermost frontier.

"Solar Probe+ is going where no spacecraft has gone before," says Lika Guhathakurta, Solar Probe+ program scientist at NASA HQ. "For the first time, we'll be able to 'touch, taste and smell' the sun."

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Why is the sun's atmosphere is so much hotter than its surface?

I like the theory that the "sound" of the roiling granules is what causes that.

[Fallout]

I like the theory that the "sound" of the roiling granules is what causes that.

That sounds like a reasonable cause. The corona is so dilute that there is hardly any energy transfer between particles to disperse the energy as they can on the surface. The same idea the applies to the Earth's thermosphere which is in excess of 2000 degrees C.

[monty slick]

I did not know that.

[0ptik]

So they assume that the sun wont kill us by 2012. (a la Knowing)