NASA invites people to join new mission to explore the sun

Mar 8, 2018 | Biz/Tech

Maheen Malik

For anyone that dreams of going into space, this is their lucky day.

NASA’s new mission to explore the sun is going to be carrying a plethora of names from all over the world. The names will board the probe that will face the sun’s deadly atmosphere.

This NASA photo shows the bright light of a solar flare on the left side of the sun. (Flickr/NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

“We give the opportunity for the public worldwide to be on the journey for the special mission and get a ticket or certificate acknowledging that, ‘Hey your name is going on a trip with other names and its going to be universal’,” Dwayne Brown of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA’s headquarters told Humber News.

People from around the world can submit their name online in exchange for a ticket that validates their part in the mission completely free of charge. The last date for people to submit their names online is April 27. Once the names are in, they will be uploaded to a microchip that will board the historic Parker Solar Probe for it’s mission this summer.

“This is a mission that is so unique because it’s going to explore a region we’ve never explored before,” Brown said. “It’s going closest to the sun than any craft has gone in human history.”

The spacecraft is about the size of a small car and will be travelling directly into the sun’s atmosphere. The Parker Solar Probe spacecraft is named in honour of solar astrophysicist Eugene Parker.

“This is the first time a spacecraft was named after a living human being,” Brown said.

The mission will be shedding some sunlight on information that NASA’s been trying to answer for more than 60 years, he said.

The Hot Ticket project to send names from all over the world into space is getting a lot of attention from people worldwide.

“We announced it yesterday and in 24 hours, we’ve already had 200,000 people signing up and looking at the article,” said Brown. “We expect that we’re going to hit the million mark in a few days or a week.”

Although the hot ticket is being hyped up, Humber students don’t seem amused. Here’s what they had to say,

Although people have their opinions, it seems to really have gotten the worlds attention. It gives people an opportunity to say they were was a part of the first mission closest to the sun’s atmosphere.

“This might break a record, I think the record for names on a spacecraft is 2.5 million so far,” Brown said.