University of Michigan | 2018 Apr 30
With old IMAX projector bulbs, U-M researchers simulate the sun.
You don’t get to swim in the Sun’s atmosphere unless you can prove you belong there. And the Parker Solar Probe’s Faraday cup, a key sensor aboard the $1.5 billion NASA mission launching this summer, earned its stripes last week by enduring testing in a homemade contraption designed to simulate the Sun.Click to play embedded YouTube video.
The cup will scoop up and examine the solar wind as the probe passes closer to the Sun than any previous manmade object. Justin Kasper, University of Michigan associate professor of climate and space sciences and engineering, is principal investigator for Parker’s Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons (SWEAP) investigation.
In order to confirm the cup will survive the extreme heat and light from the Sun’s surface, researchers previously tortured a model of the Faraday cup at temperatures exceeding 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, courtesy of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Plasma Arc Lamp. The cup, built from refractory metals and sapphire crystal insulators, exceeded expectations.
But the final test took place last week, in a homemade contraption Kasper and his research team call the Solar Environment Simulator. While being blasted with roughly 10 kilowatts of light on its surface -- enough to heat a sheet of metal to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit in seconds -- the Faraday cup model ran through its paces, successfully scanning a simulated stream of solar wind. ...
