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The Parker Solar Probe concept originates in the 1958 report by the Fields and Particles Group, Committee 8 of the National Academy of Sciences' Space Science Board, [19] [20] [21] which proposed several space missions including "a solar probe to pass inside the orbit of Mercury to study the particles and fields in the vicinity of the Sun".
As of November 2017 it has a distance from the Sun of about 140 astronomical units (AU) [14] (21 billion kilometers, or 0.002 light years), and it will not be overtaken by any other current craft. In August 2012, Voyager 1 became the first human-built spacecraft to enter interstellar space.
This is a list of space probes that have left Earth orbit (or were launched with that intention but failed), organized by their planned destination. It includes planetary probes, solar probes, and probes to asteroids and comets, but excludes lunar missions, which are listed separately at List of lunar probes and List of Apollo missions.
The sun is growing more active than scientists predicted. About every 11 years, the sun's magnetic fields flip, increasing solar activity. That activity can disrupt radio communications and GPS ...
Vigil, [2] formerly known as Lagrange, [3] is a space weather mission developed by the European Space Agency.The mission will provide the ESA Space Weather Office with instruments able to monitor the Sun, its solar corona and interplanetary medium between the Sun and Earth, to provide early warnings of increased solar activity, to identify and mitigate potential threats to society and ground ...
SolO observed the Sun from 140 million kilometers, while PSP simultaneously observed the Sun's corona from nearly 9 million kilometers. [ 43 ] [ 44 ] In March 2024, both space probes were at their closest approaches to the Sun, PSP at 7.3 million km, and SolO at 45 million km. SolO observed the Sun, while PSP sampled the plasma of the solar ...
Triton is large enough to have achieved hydrostatic equilibrium, but, uniquely for a large moon, has a retrograde orbit, suggesting it was a dwarf planet that was captured. Neptune also has seven known inner regular satellites, and eight outer irregular satellites. Pluto, a dwarf planet, has five moons.
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It orbits at an average distance of 384,400 km (238,900 mi), about 30 times the diameter of Earth. Tidal forces between Earth and the Moon have synchronized the Moon's orbital period (lunar month) with its rotation period at 29.5 Earth days, causing the same side of the Moon to always face Earth.