Spacecraft shatters record for world’s fastest manmade object after traveling 400,000 mph

By Mark Waghorn via SWNS

A spacecraft has smashed the record for the fastest manmade object - reaching 400,000 miles an hour.

The Parker Solar Probe is moving so rapidly at 112 miles per second even a speck of dust could destroy it.

Hyper-velocity impacts are producing plasma explosions and clouds of debris, say scientists.

The findings have major implications for the safety of NASA missions - including manned trips to Mars.

They come as the race to the Red Planet hots up - with China planning to get astronauts there by 2033.

Now measurements of electric and magnetic fields - combined with camera images - have revealed the cosmic collisions in close-up.

Parker is traversing near to the sun at up to 112 miles a second - quick enough to get from Atlanta, Georgia to Frankin, North Carolina in the blink of an eye.

Costing $1.5 billion, it represents humanity's first visit to Earth's star - shedding fresh light on its weather.

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It is plowing through the densest region of the 'zodiacal cloud' - a pancake-shaped swirl of tiny grains from asteroids and comets.

They are two to 20 microns in diameter - less than a quarter of the width of a human hair.

Thousands are striking the spacecraft at hypervelocity - faster than 6,700 miles per hour.

Upon impact, the material that makes up the dust grains and the spacecraft surface is heated so much it vaporizes - then ionizes.

This creates the explosions of plasma - lasting less than one-thousandth of a second.

The largest generate clouds of debris that slowly expand away from the spacecraft.

Lead author Dr. David Malaspina, a space scientist at Colorado University, said: "With these measurements, we can watch the plasma created by these dust impacts be swept away by the flow of the solar wind."

Learning how this "pick up" process works on a small scale may show how larger plasma regions are swept away by the solar wind.

They are found in the upper atmosphere of Venus - and the Red Planet.

The US team also observed how metallic flakes and paint chips knocked loose during collisions with dust drifted and tumbled near the spacecraft.

Those pieces of debris created streaks in the images taken by navigational and scientific cameras on Parker.

Co-author Dr. Kaushik Iyer, also from Colarado, said: "Many image streaks look radial - originating near the heat shield."

The study also found the debris scattered sunlight into the cameras - temporarily preventing the spacecraft from determining how it was oriented.

That is a dangerous prospect for a spacecraft that relies on the precise pointing of its heat shield to survive.

Parker was launched in 2018 and has completed nine full orbits. It will complete another 15 before the seven-year mission ends in 2025.

Dr. Malaspina said: "As Parker continues its journey of exploration it can now add one more record to its long list - most sand-blasted spacecraft."

The results are being presented at an American Physical Society meeting in Pittsburgh.

China is planning to build a permanently inhabited base on the Red Planet and extract its resources. But the US wants to get there first.