Over 1.1 million people’s names will be carried to the sun this July by NASA’s Parker Solar Probe – humanity’s first mission to touch a star. The probe will touch and cross through the sun’s atmosphere 24 times getting humans closer to the star that no other spacecraft has been able to do till now.
The Parker Solar Probe will change the meaning of the sun for us that will be the only star that we can properly study.
People were asked to send the names to the Sun aboard humanity’s first mission to touch a star. 1,137,202 names in total were sent and confirmed, and a memory card was installed on May 18 on the spacecraft with the scheduled launch date of July 31.
The memory card was mounted on a plaque that had a quote from the person behind the mission’s name – Eugene Parker. The card also has photographs of Parker that can be preserved by people.
Parker, while practising as the Professor of the University of Chicago revealed a number of concepts about how stars, as well as the Sun, produce materials.
On the mission, Parker will explore the Sun’s outer atmosphere and carry out key observations and answer age-old questions about the stars and the solar system.
The result could also improve forecasts of the eruptions on the Sun and the related life events that impact the Earth, satellites and astronauts in space.