NASA, ULA Launch Parker Solar Probe on Historic Journey to Touch Sun

Hours before the rise of the very star it will study, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe launched from Florida Sunday to begin its journey to the Sun, where it will undertake a landmark mission. The spacecraft will transmit its first science observations in December, beginning a revolution in our understanding of the star that makes life on Earth possible.

Roughly the size of a small car, the spacecraft lifted off at 3:31 a.m. EDT on a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. At 5:33 a.m., the mission operations manager reported that the spacecraft was healthy and operating normally.

The mission’s findings will help researchers improve their forecasts of space weather events, which have the potential to damage satellites and harm astronauts on orbit, disrupt radio communications and, at their most severe, overwhelm power grids.

“This mission truly marks humanity’s first visit to a star that will have implications not just here on Earth, but how we better understand our universe,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “We’ve accomplished something that decades ago, lived solely in the realm of science fiction.”

During the first week of its journey, the spacecraft will deploy its high-gain antenna and magnetometer boom. It also will perform the first of a two-part deployment of its electric field antennas. Instrument testing will begin in early September and last approximately four weeks, after which Parker Solar Probe can begin science operations.

“Today’s launch was the culmination of six decades of scientific study and millions of hours of effort,” said project manager Andy Driesman, of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. “Now, Parker Solar Probe is operating normally and on its way to begin a seven-year mission of extreme science.”

Over the next two months, Parker Solar Probe will fly towards Venus, performing its first Venus gravity assist in early October – a maneuver a bit like a handbrake turn – that whips the spacecraft around the planet, using Venus’s gravity to trim the spacecraft’s orbit tighter around the Sun. This first flyby will place Parker Solar Probe in position in early November to fly as close as 15 million miles from the Sun – within the blazing solar atmosphere, known as the corona – closer than anything made by humanity has ever gone before.

Throughout its seven-year mission, Parker Solar Probe will make six more Venus flybys and 24 total passes by the Sun, journeying steadily closer to the Sun until it makes its closest approach at 3.8 million miles. At this point, the probe will be moving at roughly 430,000 miles per hour, setting the record for the fastest-moving object made by humanity.

Parker Solar Probe will set its sights on the corona to solve long-standing, foundational mysteries of our Sun. What is the secret of the scorching corona, which is more than 300 times hotter than the Sun’s surface, thousands of miles below? What drives the supersonic solar wind – the constant stream of solar material that blows through the entire solar system? And finally, what accelerates solar energetic particles, which can reach speeds up to more than half the speed of light as they rocket away from the Sun?

Scientists have sought these answers for more than 60 years, but the investigation requires sending a probe right through the unrelenting heat of the corona. Today, this is finally possible with cutting-edge thermal engineering advances that can protect the mission on its daring journey.

“Exploring the Sun’s corona with a spacecraft has been one of the hardest challenges for space exploration,” said Nicola Fox, project scientist at APL. “We’re finally going to be able to answer questions about the corona and solar wind raised by Gene Parker in 1958 – using a spacecraft that bears his name – and I can’t wait to find out what discoveries we make. The science will be remarkable.”

Parker Solar Probe carries four instrument suites designed to study magnetic fields, plasma and energetic particles, and capture images of the solar wind. The University of California, Berkeley, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and Princeton University in New Jersey lead these investigations.

Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA’s Living with a Star program to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. The Living with a Star program is managed by the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. APL designed and built, and operates the spacecraft.

The mission is named for Eugene Parker, the physicist who first theorized the existence of the solar wind in 1958. It’s the first NASA mission to be named for a living researcher.

A plaque dedicating the mission to Parker was attached to the spacecraft in May. It includes a quote from the renowned physicist – “Let’s see what lies ahead.” It also holds a memory card containing more than 1.1 million names submitted by the public to travel with the spacecraft to the Sun.

Belgian mussels developed stronger shells

Belgian mussels have developed stronger shells over the last hundred years. More calcareous shells protect them better from crabs’ claws and seagulls’ beaks. These predators have increased significantly in number during the last fifty years. ‘Belgian mussels adapt surprisingly well to new environmental conditions’, says biologist Thierry Backeljau (RBINS). ‘They might be more resilient to climate change than we think.’

An international team of biologists analyzed the calcareous structure of mussel shells that were collected along the Belgian coast this last century. You would expect the shells to become thinner because more acidic seawater - due to the increase in CO₂ in the atmosphere - breaks down calcareous matter. But the team observed a marked increase in the calcification of mussel shells.

The main causes of the more calcareous mussel shells are changes in predators. The dog whelk (Nucella Lapillus) disappeared at the end of the seventies, after which the number of crabs and seagulls increased during the 1980s and 1990s respectively. This led to a pressure on mussels to develop thicker shells, protecting better against the crabs’ claws and the seagulls’ pecking beaks. According to the scientists, this might mean that our Belgian mussel populations can better cope with future climate changes than previously thought.

A special collection

The researchers evaluated a total of 268 mussels that were collected between 1904 and 2016 on the breakwaters between Nieuwpoort and Ostend. The specimens collected between 1904 and 1987 are part of the collections of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural sciences (RBINS). This unique collection of one single species is composed of ‘wet’ specimens (shells and body tissue, preserved in ethanol), and ‘dry’ specimens (shells only). They were collected during monitoring programs over the past century. ‘This mussel collection is unique,’ says biologist Thierry Backeljau (RBINS), co-author of the study. ‘It may sound paradoxical, but to have such an extended collection of an animal that is so ubiquitous is rare. Researchers usually focus on exceptional species.’

Dog Whelks and acidification

The dog whelk is an important predator of mussels in the North Sea. Dog whelks make a small hole in the mussel shell, through which they suck the mussel empty. To do this, they must drill through the dark, organic outer layer of the mussel: the periostracum. Mussels with a thicker periostracum are better protected against this type of predator. This created a selective pressure on mussels, favoring a thicker periostracum. The acidification of the North Sea - which breaks down calcareous matter - led to additional pressure in favor of more periostracum, offering better protection to the underlying calcareous layer.

But as of the late 1970s, things changed. The dog whelk population suddenly declined sharply and even died out locally due to the use of tin based paint on ship hulls, particularly tributyltin hydride (TBT). The selection pressure on mussel populations in favor of more periostracum decreased.

Crabs and seagulls

In the meantime, average spring and summer temperatures of North Sea surface waters continued to rise, in line with global ocean trends. The input of minerals and nutrients from the land also increased steadily over the past sixty years due to the discharge of fertilizers and wastewater into rivers (eutrophication). The result: an increase in the amount of algae and thus a greater food supply for all kinds of organisms, including the larvae of decapods such as crabs and lobsters. As a result - helped by overfishing of cod, which feeds on those larvae - the number of crabs and lobsters skyrocketed from the 1980s.

Just like the dog whelk, crabs and lobsters are fond of mussels, which they crush with their claws. Protection by a periostracum makes little difference against this, but a stronger, more calcareous shell does. Moreover, depositing calcium requires less energy than producing a periostracum. Thus, a new selection pressure arose, in favor of more calcareous shells.

This selective pressure was reinforced by the exponential population growth of seagulls in the 1990s, due to the increased number of decapods. The breeding season of seagulls (May and June) coincides with the peak of decapods, which are an important food source for the chicks. But seagulls also eat mussels and increased the selection pressure in favor of a calcareous, solid shell.

Hope for the future?

This study shows that the global effects of climate change, such as ocean acidification, do not simply apply on a local scale. Complex, local changes in ecological conditions can lead to biological outcomes that appear to conflict with predictions on a global scale.

‘The Belgian mussel populations seem able to adapt their shell formation to a wide range of local selection pressures and perturbations’, says Backeljau. ‘This gives hope for the future: mussels may be better armed against climate change than we thought.’ This research also illustrates the importance of natural science collections, such as those of the RBINS, in the study of, and fight against, climate change. ‘Collections and archival specimens help us investigate long-term effects of changes in the environment, which is difficult with experimental studies. It is a powerful research method that, as shown here, can yield surprising results and help us get a clearer picture of historical ecological changes’, concludes Backeljau.

The study was published in Global Change Biology.

A Belgian-Congolese research team has discovered and documented a community of eastern chimpanzees in three small mountain forests in eastern Congo, near Lake Albert. They counted 283 chimpanzee nests in 18 km² of forest, and estimate that there are 4,6 chimpanzees per km². The eastern chimpanzee is endangered. More and more forest is turned into agricultural land. The researchers propose authorities to protect these relict mountain forests in the Albertine Rift and involving local communities from the start.

In East-Congo, in the Province of Ituri, near Lake Albert, lies a mosaic of 20 small montane forests fragments, comprising a total surface of 70 km². This patchwork of forests is called the RAFALE landscape (Relict Altitude Forests Fragments of the Albert Lake Escarpment). In three selected forest fragments, 18 km² in total, a Belgian and Congolese research team discovered and documented a surviving community of eastern chimpanzees. The eastern chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) is an endangered subspecies.

Touching Discovery

In 2015 biologist Anne Laudisoit (University of Antwerp and now EcoHealth Alliance) was doing research on infectious diseases in the area, when she and local guide Otis Kpanyogo heard chimpanzee cries in a very small patch of forest.

In the two following years she led several multinational expedition teams to observe the chimpanzee population. With camera traps the researchers documented 42 weaned chimpanzees and 10 infants. They walked transects - routes along which observations are made - and counted the chimpanzee nests: 283 in 18 km². In this way they could estimate the chimpanzee density in those three isolated forests: about 4,6 chimpanzees per km². That’s more than in comparable forest patches in other regions.

‘Having these unknown and undocumented chimpanzees in front of you, and on camera, was just an incredible discovery, and touched every team member’, says Anne Laudisoit, who – together with photojournalist Caroline Thirion – produced a documentary about the chimpanzee community, entitled: Mbudha, in the chimpanzees footsteps.

Protecting Chimpanzees

This RAFALE chimpanzee community, including the Mbudha community in the three forests investigated, is endangered as more and more forest is turned into agricultural land – by slash-and-burn – to grow cassava, groundnuts, beans, maize and sorghum and feed the densely populated communities in the area.

The authors of this study hope that authorities will recognize the RAFALE landscape as a new Chimpanzee Conservation Unit. They would like to see local communities assisted in the design of a sustainable conservation plan for the benefit of both people and wildlife. ‘These small forests are sacks full of life’, says biologist Erik Verheyen (University of Antwerp and Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences). ‘The protection of this area would also help the conservation of the vulnerable Oustalet’s red colobus monkey and the endangered pangolins as well as 26 other mammal species we recorded in this area.’

The study of the Mbudha chimpanzees and their habitat has only just begun. This Spring 2021, Laudisoit (funded by a National Geographic Grant to pursue the explorations) and a team of biologists are undertaking a new expedition to the area and already observed another 15 chimpanzees. One of the goals is to understand how the Mbudha population is genetically connected to or isolated from others in the region.

The Congolese and Belgian researchers involved in this study published their results in the journal Conservation Science and Practice. The team consisted of biologists from Kisangani University (UNIKIS), Centre de Surveillance de la Biodiversité (CSB), Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), University of Antwerp (UAntwerp), Antwerp Zoo Centre for Research and Conservation (CRC), Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) and EcoHealth Alliance.

We used to believe that our ancestors had clear roles: Men hunt, women gather. But new evidence suggests that some of the earliest big game hunters were women.