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The Parker Solar Probe will make its closest approach yet to the Sun

(arstechnica.com)
164 points pseudolus | 11 comments | 20 Dec 24 11:23 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source | bottom
1. amelius ◴[20 Dec 24 19:50 UTC] No.42474343[source]▶
Of course it is completely evaporated before hitting anything that remotely resembles a surface.
replies(3): >>42474412 #>>42474730 #>>42474808 #
2. detritus ◴[20 Dec 24 19:57 UTC] No.42474412[source]▶
Is there even a surface?
replies(2): >>42474449 #>>42474954 #
3. amelius ◴[20 Dec 24 20:01 UTC] No.42474449[source]▶
Yes, if you zoom out enough you see it. Like with ordinary objects.
replies(1): >>42474874 #
4. alnwlsn ◴[20 Dec 24 20:30 UTC] No.42474730[source]▶
To be clear, it's not the end of the mission as far as I'm aware. It will come around again and do 4 more sun flybys next year.
5. ceritium ◴[20 Dec 24 20:40 UTC] No.42474808[source]▶
No if they go during the night
6. shwouchk ◴[20 Dec 24 20:49 UTC] No.42474874{3}[source]▶
Most ordinary objects have the property that the density of object mass has a very sharp gradient near some 2d surface that encloses a compact domain, and outside that is close to 0. However not identically 0, since eg the object is constantly releasing vapor of atoms of itself. If you zoom out enough out out of anything it looks like that, depending on how sharp you wish the gradient to be to call it a "surface".

For objects where the gradient at the boundary is not great relative to our size we would subjectively experience no surface when coming close eg to a cloud.

Does a galaxy have a "surface"? We can often also "clearly see" the edge of it...

replies(1): >>42475631 #
7. adolph ◴[20 Dec 24 20:59 UTC] No.42474954[source]▶
The photosphere is the visible surface of the Sun that we are most familiar with. Since the Sun is a ball of gas, this is not a solid surface but is actually a layer about 100 km thick (very, very, thin compared to the 700,000 km radius of the Sun).

https://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov/surface.shtml

8. amelius ◴[20 Dec 24 22:17 UTC] No.42475631{4}[source]▶
How do you define density?
replies(1): >>42476438 #
9. shwouchk ◴[21 Dec 24 00:18 UTC] No.42476438{5}[source]▶
Really? I suspect this is a troll but, in the static case, roughly the ratio of volume of space to how much gravitational force said volume applies on other objects. Extrapolate correctly for qm/gr - thats an exercise left for the reader.

Depending on your scales etc you may wish to group different things into the category of “object”, eg a car would likely be be selected as a valid grouping of atoms as an object by most people in conversation wheres it is mostly empty space at the micro level, and has a bunch of very different densities (many oom) at diff volumes even at the macro scale (eg the air in the trunk vs the engine block).

replies(1): >>42476498 #
10. amelius ◴[21 Dec 24 00:27 UTC] No.42476498{6}[source]▶
I mean, how do you select the volume to sample over?
replies(1): >>42480384 #
11. shwouchk ◴[21 Dec 24 16:00 UTC] No.42480384{7}[source]▶
You look at that wierd bright thing going baaaaaam for millions of years nonstop and decide you would like to know some stuff about it? ;-)