Pun in the Sun

The sun has been deified and worshiped for more than a millennia. From the Egyptian Amen-Ra to the Greek Apollo, the very Indian Surya to the Japanese (Shinto) Goddess Amaterasu; cultures across the world have been enamored by the life giving warmth of the sun.

Science fiction movies and books have come up with extremely novel plots around the sun too. While the 2007 Sunshine movie rocked the moviegoers with vivid CGI and images of the sun, the novel Sunstorm‘s wildly futuristic plot lines with benevolent planet wide sentient AI’s protecting the Earth from a mass coronal high energy ejections from the sun thrilled the sci-fi fan community with a vivid interwoven blend of hard science facts about the sun and an exciting fiction theme.

But some thing exciting is happening right now which would widen the knowledge of sun for generations to come. NASA has sent a probe (named as Parker) for learning more about the sun. The Parker probe recently skimmed the sun from as close up as 15 million miles. While it may not seem very close to us earth dwellers, for those astronomers and star gazers who navigate the cold outer space in light years, it’s very close indeed. The Parker probe is is expected to reach as close as 3.83 million miles from the sun’s surface in 2024. The probe seeks answers to many questions that has the scientific community arguing for decades such as Why is the Corona hotter than the surface of the sun? & What is the reason behind the continuous acceleration of the solar wind?

You can track more updates on the Parker probe in the NASA website here.

You can read Kanika’s take here on the same topic.