NASA's Parker Ride Will Make Last Flight To Planet Venus

Illustration of the Parker Solar Probe ride (photo: dock. NASA)

JAKARTA The Parker Solar Probe will make its final trip to Venus on Wednesday, November 6. NASA's spacecraft will carry out the final maneuver by crossing Venus within 376 kilometers.

During maneuvering, Parker will carry out the final orbital configuration or adjust its trajectory in Venus orbit. Later, this vehicle will rely on the Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) instrument to monitor the solar wind.

Venus is the second planet in the solar system closest to the sun so the planet has been named the third brightest astronomical object after the sun and stars. Therefore, Parker is used to observe Venus as well as the sun.

According to scientists, WISPR is a very useful tool to observe Venus. This was proven when Parker made the third flight crossing in July 2020. At that time, WISPR was able to see the surface of Venus covered with thick clouds.

The WISPR camera can see through the clouds down to the surface of Venus, which is shining in the near infrared because it is very hot, said Scientist Noam Izenberg. At that time, the temperature of Venus which reached 465 degrees Celsius was emitted through the clouds.

The following year, Parker again carried out cross-flight and data from his radar was successfully combined into mosaics. However, this dataset shows results that are different from the previous cross-flight that confuse scientists.

Therefore, cross-flight on November 6 is indispensable to get more accurate observational results. This latter maneuver will determine whether WISPR on Parker is capable of distinguishing chemicals on the planet Venus.

"Traffic flights on November 6 will give us more context to evaluate whether WISPR can help us distinguish physical or even chemical properties of the Venus surface," said Izenberg.