The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
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CfA Will Play Major Role in Mission to "Touch" the Sun

  • Justin Kasper, principal investigator of the SWEAP Investigation, standing in front of a solar furnace at Odeillo. Curved mirrors focus the Sun's heat, raising temperatures of sample materials to thousands of degrees. Kasper and his colleagues used the furnace to test materials that will be used to construct SWEAP - one of the instruments carried aboard the upcoming Solar Probe Plus. As it swings near the Sun, the probe will have to withstand temperatures exceeding 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit, as well as blasts of radiation and particles.

    Justin Kasper, principal investigator of the SWEAP Investigation, standing in front of a solar furnace at Odeillo. Curved mirrors focus the Sun's heat, raising temperatures of sample materials to thousands of degrees. Kasper and his colleagues used the furnace to test materials that will be used to construct SWEAP - one of the instruments carried aboard the upcoming Solar Probe Plus. As it swings near the Sun, the probe will have to withstand

    temperatures exceeding 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit, as well as blasts of radiation and particles.

    Justin Kasper

    Low Resolution Image