• Question: how far could you get to the sun without burning to death? thank you nick

    Asked by juniornewton to Nick on 11 Mar 2014.
    • Photo: Nick Wright

      Nick Wright answered on 11 Mar 2014:

      It depends if you’re protected by a spacecraft or a shield or anything. Because there is not oxygen in space you’d need to be in a spacesuit. If that was all you had you might get halfway before the heat became too much. If you had a spacecraft that would protect you a bit, especially protecting you from the harmful ultraviolet radiation coming from the Sun. If you had really powerful shield you could get even further, but eventually the heat would be too much. It just depends on how much shielding you think you could use. Does that answer your question?

Comments

  • Photo: juniornewton

    juniornewton commented on :

    yes thank you!

  • Photo: Alan

    Alan commented on :

    Right now two spacecraft are planned that will try to get really close! The European/ESA mission called Solar Orbiter will regularly get to within 26 million miles of the Sun. In 10 years the American/NASA SolarProbePlus will dive to within 3.7 million miles of the Sun before moving away again to cool off. They will both need lots of heat shielding to stop the instruments on the spacecraft from getting too hot and melting.