NASA’s Parker Solar Probe was expected to make history on Tuesday by flying into the sun’s outer atmosphere, with Tunisian astrophysicist Nour E. Rawafi playing a pivotal role in the mission. The goal of the mission is to help scientists learn more about Earth’s closest star.
With the spacecraft out of contact, it will be Friday before mission operators confirm its health following the close flyby.
Parker was on course to fly 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) from the sun’s surface at 6:53 a.m. EST (1153 GMT). Moving at up to 430,000 mph (692,000 kph), the spacecraft will endure temperatures of up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982 degrees Celsius), NASA said on its website.
At the heart of this mission is Rawafi, a Tunisian astrophysicist and project scientist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. Rawafi leads efforts to uncover the mysteries of the Sun, demonstrating how talent from Tunisia is shaping the frontiers of space exploration.
“Nour and his team are unlocking the mysteries of our star, from understanding solar storms that impact Earth to collecting revolutionary data that will fuel discoveries for decades,” the US Embassy in Tunis said in a Facebook post, celebrating the scientist. “This awe-inspiring mission reflects both the brilliance of human ingenuity and the vital role Tunisian talent plays in advancing scientific exploration on a global scale.”
Rawafi graduated from University of Tunis El Manar with a Master’s Degree in fundamental physics then received his Ph.D. from the University of Paris XI in Orsay, France.
The Tunisian scientist’s research spreads over a wide range of solar and heliospheric areas with an emphasis on the dynamic solar corona – the outermost layer of the sun’s atmosphere, visible during a solar eclipse as a glowing halo.
His primary contributions have been on the sun’s magnetic fields, which control many solar activities and influence space weather. He has also worked on coronal spectropolarimetry, a technique that helps understand the magnetic fields and physical properties of the sun’s outer atmosphere.
Before joining the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in 2008, he worked at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany and the National Solar Observatory in the US.
Rawafi is also a member of the American Geophysical Union and the American Astronomical Society/Solar Physics Division (SPD).
First probe pass in 2021
When the Parker Solar Probe first passed into the solar atmosphere in 2021 it found new details about the boundaries of the sun’s atmosphere and collected close-up images of coronal streamers, cusp-like structures seen during solar eclipses.
Since the spacecraft launched in 2018, the probe has been gradually circling closer towards the sun, using flybys of Venus to gravitationally pull it into a tighter orbit with the sun.
One instrument aboard the spacecraft captured visible light from Venus, giving scientists a new way to see through the planet’s thick clouds to the surface below, NASA said.
With Reuters
source/content: english.alarabiya.net (headline edited)
____________
Tunisian astrophysicist Dr. Nour Rawafi. (John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory)
____________
TUNISIA