NASA calls on APL to send a probe to the sun

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Why don't they just go at night?

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

do you realize just how long a day is on the sun?

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"blacker than the blackest black... times infinity."- Nathan Explosion
The.. Best.. Thread..Ever...

The sun takes on average over the whole thing about 28 days to rotate. So yes, they could go at 'night', though I doubt it would make much difference .

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No, Swift means the time when it's dark out. You know, night, like in night time, when the moon is out?

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As above, so below

Well, that's easy enough to do - the sun has a bunch of moons

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WANTED:

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Yes, but the nearest one always obscures at least half the sky, and often more.

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Well, it is going to be the fastest object ever made, no?

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"Shut up and calculate" R. Feynman

So why they cannot send a rover to Venus, the conditions are mild compared to this there.

Btw because of this I am unhappy that we don't have a hot jupiter here in our solar system, it would be very interesting

Be glad, the cold Jupiter we do have protects us from comets and asteroids. Also, IIRC, hot Jupiter's tend to destroy the orbits of smaller planets as they cruise inward. Or at least thats what some computer simulations say.
Be glad.

Also, sending a rover to Venus would be different because you couldn't keep cool by keeping your radiator in the dark, like in a vacuum. At least that's my guess anyway.

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Oh, I understand now.
But you can still keep the interior with temperature sensitive things somewhat cool, I've read about a possible Venus rover project somewhere at the net.
But if we had a hot jupiter, we could have a cold jupiter too and yes, inner planets might be disturbed, but might not be and when they are disturbed, some big formerly "cold jupiter" with big moons containing rock and ice could migrate to an Earthlike orbit and create a nice system with habitable moons arounds a super jupiter in the habitable zone, an interesting hot jupiter close to the sun and a cold jupiter in the outer system to protect from comets.

I agree, it is possible to keep somewhat cool on Venus. There WAS a few Russian probes that survived long enough to send back pictures, but the engineering constraints of a rover would be much harder, because it would be mobile. As for the hot Jupiter scenario, yes, it is likely possible we would still have a life bearing object. But it wouldn't be us watching.

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Well if we developed there...

It couldn't. Our species is a product of its history. change the history, change the species. But this is getting off topic.Sending a probe this close to the sun will certainly an amazing achievement, unless it does something stupid like blow up on the launch pad. Could happen.

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I read somewhere that it was around 5 billion years.

Man! We'll NEVER get there from here!

Unless we use unobtanium, which a simultaneous inventor in Sweden named impervium. The Japanese, who claim to have invented it first, call it 国連は材料を得る

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that.

"Staying young requires the unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." - Heinlein

"Freedom begins when you tell Ms. Grundy to go fly a kite." - Heinlein

You could keep it edgewise to the Sun, with a bit of a shade..

Still, Venutian atmosphere is incredibly corrosive, particularly when it's that hot. It's like sending a probe into a vat of 900 degree acqua regia, which dissolves gold at room temperature. At 900 deg, it would cut through pretty much anything in short order, except, perhaps, a vapor-deposited layer of pure diamond.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that.

"Staying young requires the unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." - Heinlein

"Freedom begins when you tell Ms. Grundy to go fly a kite." - Heinlein

The other thing involves cooling. It would have to be done in several stages, as the rocks themselves are radiating heat to the radiator.

But it would be possible to have a long-term unmanned probe on Venus.

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that.

"Staying young requires the unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods." - Heinlein

"Freedom begins when you tell Ms. Grundy to go fly a kite." - Heinlein

You're going to need one serious heat pump and lots of power to run it just to keep the sensitive components cool enough.

Still probes HAVE landed on Venus, and HAVE taken some pictures,
http://www.mentallandscape.com/C_CatalogVenus.htm

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Ok I am going to ask because I've wondered for days and have been to lazy to find out in books but.

Due to the high atmospheric pressure on Venus, wouldn't cooling a rover/lander be much more difficult than say on a thinner atmosphere or no atmosphere? In short is it easier to cool a lander in the sun on Mercury than to cool a lander on Venus?

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