3029: Sun Avoidance

Sun Avoidance

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Title text: C'mon, ESA Solar Orbiter team, just give the Parker probe a LITTLE nudge at aphelion. Crash it into the sun. Fulfill the dream of Icarus. It is your destiny.

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Explanation

This is one of 58 incomplete explanations: Created by a SANTA BOT FLYING TOO CLOSE TO THE SUN (SKILL ISSUE). Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

The comic shows the end of a table of human missions, both terrestrial and space-based, ranked by how far they stayed away from the Sun.

The vast majority of these missions have been on Earth, a few on the Moon, and most of the rest in Earth orbit, so about 157 million km from the Sun. There have also been 8 probes sent to the outer planets; they could be at the top of the list if this were shown, but only if they started by flying directly away from the Sun, at at time when the Earth was farthest from the Sun. Else they would have been closer to the Sun at the start than all missions on Earth when Earth was farthest. It is not how far away the mission ends but how close it comes at closest approach to the Sun.

Most space probes try not to get too close to the Sun, because it's extremely hot^{[citation needed]} and their equipment (especially the electronics) are not designed to work at such temperatures and radiation levels. If they have to venture into the inner Solar System, either because the mission is to an inner planet or other body there or to use gravity assist of Mercury or Venus, mission planners will design the trajectory so it remains tens of millions of kilometers away from the Sun, to minimize the Sun's effect on the spacecraft.

This comic was posted the day after December 24, 2024, when the Parker Solar Probe made its closest approach to the Sun. As a result, it has set a new record for the worst failure in solar avoidance. This mission needs to be really close to the Sun so it can make close-up analysis of its corona and magnetic field. It has been engineered with special solar shields to protect it from the extreme heat and radiation.

Obviously the joke is to mischaracterize Parker's impressively close approach to the Sun as a failure to avoid it, but it's still perhaps mistaken to title the list as a leaderboard of skill. The Parker mission needed an extremely high degree of skill to successfully avoid the Sun's main mass whilst still needing to go through a layer of tenuous atmosphere — and should rank well above all the missions that went nowhere as near the Sun, and therefore showed little to no skill in avoiding it. By analogy, "William Tell" avoided shooting his son with great skill, and would have needed much less if the real target had been a beach ball rather than an apple.

The next closest mission that's still in operation (the Helios missions ended in 1985) is the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter. The title text jokes that it should nudge Parker so it crashes into the Sun fulfilling the supposed dream of Icarus, a character from Greek mythology who flew too close to the Sun using wings crafted by his father Daedalus, and fell into the sea because the beeswax in the wings melted. Flying too close to the Sun is a saying that relates to Icarus, whose dream may have been to fly even closer to the Sun (or just so high that he was), but the 'reality' was instead a fall out of the sky and into the sea, making the title text somewhat metaphorically mixed.

If the Solar Orbiter did this it would then retake its lead among missions in operation of being bad at avoiding the Sun (or, in terms of the comic, aquiring a "last place" position). But it would be be difficult to accomplish the feat, since at Parker's aphelion (furthest distance from the Sun in its orbit) it's still only about 7 million km, 35 million km from Solar Orbiter's orbit and the mission had not been designed with this degree of capability in reserve.

Note that falling into the Sun, starting from Earth, needs almost as much effort as it would take to launch a probe from the surface of the Sun (assuming one could be) and out into Earth's orbit, which might involve reversing the gravitational slingshots used to save some effort. The possible advantage for a Sun-destined probe is that it can end by taking advantage of aerobraking in its thickening atmosphere, but this would mean surviving higher tempereratures for even longer than Parker probe is designed to hopefully withstand; it would take further development to have a probe with a good chance of surviving long enough to make useful studies all the way up to not missing the Sun at all, or could only be considered as beyond the end of any practical mission.

Transcript

This is one of 31 incomplete transcripts: There should not be a wikitable there, just do it with Transcript-style description. Do NOT delete this tag too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

Sun Avoidance Skill Leaderboard

[A table with an ellipsis indicating a large number of rows being omitted, followed by seven substantive rows. All of the rank numbers except "1." are cut off at the left, with the leftmost digit being a partially cut-off "4", except that on the fourth substantive row, the "4" is shown in full with a cut-off "2" to its left. Hence, these ranks actually represent numbers with at least eight digits.]

Rank	Mission	Sun Nearest Miss
1. ⋮ ... ⋮ 4303857.	[All other expeditions in human history]
4303858.	Mariner-10	69.0 million km
4303859.	Helios 1	46.4 million km
4303860.	BepiColombo	45.8 million km
24303861.	Messenger	45.3 million km
4303862.	Solar Orbiter	43.8 million km
4303863.	Helios 2	43.3 million km
4303864.	Parker	6.17 million km

[Caption below the panel:]

Congratulations to the Parker Solar Probe for setting a new record for "Worst Job Avoiding the Sun."

Trivia

This comic was released on Christmas Day of 2024, but makes no reference to Christmas. This year marks the first time in xkcd's 20 year history (of releasing comics around Christmas), that there have been no Christmas comics released during those days. Also all nine times before this year, when a release day fell on Christmas Day, that comic has always been about Christmas.

It might explain why this comic was released on Christmas Day instead of a Christmas comic, if Randall found the accomplishments of the Parker Solar Probe more interesting than Christmas itself. It would not be the first accomplishment mentioned on or around Christmas, however, with the others having been given a seasonal spin.

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Discussion

My first time editing the BOT name. Barmar (talk) 01:39, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Maybe change it to BOT GETTING NOTHING BUT SUNBURN FOR CHRISTMAS? 198.41.227.177 03:47, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Nothing for Christmas? xkcd has fallen Pie Guy (talk) 02:26, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Comic 3000 didn't have anything special for it either. Lame! 172.70.210.68 03:44, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Well, Hannukah is the feast of lights, and Christians say Jesus is The Light, so it kind of fits. Kind of. 198.41.227.177 03:50, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Well it is kind of sad when he doesn't post an x-mas comic. Maybe this achievement of Parker outshone x-mas (like the sun outshines) in Randall's view. But it only happens on a few years he completely misses the chance to acknowledge x-mas. ;-/ --Kynde (talk) 10:50, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

I have made a mention of the strange thing that this release was not about Christmas and also made several notes about in on the Category:Christmas. It is a 20 year and a ten in a row streak that ended at 19 and 9 for years in a row with x-mas comic at Chirstmas and times in a row when a 25th December release was about x-mas. --Kynde (talk) 11:31, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Given the election of 47 (Randall's opinion of which can be guessed), and its dependence on, and promises to, those who call themselves "Christians", Randall's silence about the holiday can perhaps be understood, and maybe accepted as a better option than screaming. There is an awful lot of "la la la ..." going on in the USA during this transition season ... rather like in Berlin in the year 1933 CE. 108.162.246.47 16:00, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

I find it implausible that Randall would decline to do a Christmas comic based on Trump being elected. Most of his Christmas comics focus on secular elements of the holiday anyway. --172.68.55.81 01:54, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

Yes last time DT was elected he made this jolly comic: 1776: Reindeer :-D but then he made this New Year comic: 1779: 2017. That he did not feel to celebrate at the moment is quite certain. But I do not think he or anyone else actually think that either side of the political field have priority over x-mas! So I really think he was so focused on the record that he took this instead. Still looking foward to Fridays comic to see if he might mention Christmas there. I do not think so, but if he did he would not break the 19 year with x-mas comics in a row streak. Only the one with not posting one on the 25th. --Kynde (talk) 13:35, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

None of us (presumably) is Randall, so unless the correct horse speaks, we won't know. To those who found it incredible that there was no xkcd Xmas comic in 2024, I responded that I found it very much not incredible. And as for saplings growing in a fallen forest, I can only hope that the USA's take on the Beer Hall Putsch doesn't turn into the Capitol's take on the Reichstag ... or the Brandenburg Gate, anno 1945 CE. 108.162.245.39 16:06, 27 December 2024 (UTC)

XKCD wishes you a merry NOTHING and a happy new NOTHING. Hope you get lots of NOTHING this NOTHING! Remember to spend lots of NOTHING with your NOTHING! 172.70.211.233 03:34, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

"This would be difficult, since at Parker's aphelion (furthest distance from the Sun in its orbit) it's still only about 7 million km, 35 million km from Solar Orbiter's orbit (and the probes would be much further apart if they're not on the same side of the Sun at the time)." -- What does aligning the probes have to do with the title text? Isn't the nudge at the aphelion meant to lower the perihelion into the Sun? (and not have anything to do with the proximity of the two probes) --Sophon (talk) 05:22, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

This explanation is not correct: at aphelion (further's point to the sun) Parker's is close to Venus orbit (~100 million km). Solar Orbiter's perihelion (closest point to the sun) is well below Mercury's orbit. There will regularly be at the same distance from the sun but very likely on different sides of the sun making virtually impossible any interactions between them as suggested by the title text. --162.158.39.165 06:10, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Ahhhh.. I (and perhaps others, like the comment currently immediately above?) had not properly understood the TT. Selective reading meant I had not realised that both probes were mentioned there, and that SO was therefore going to deflect PP (not either SO or PP changing their own orbit for themselves). Might need to edit something about that in... 172.70.163.130 16:44, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

My mistake. I misread Wikipedia, thinking that it said Parker's aphelion was 7.26 million km, when that was actually a previous perihelion. Barmar (talk) 20:23, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

Would the top five of the Sun Avoidance leaderboard be Voyager 1, Voyager 2, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, and New Horizons Take The A Train To Watertown (talk) 08:41, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

If they at any point got closer to the Sun than Earth ever is, they would end below all human missions on Earth. It do not say that it is space related missions. Also there are not that many missions to space and can be seen in the part of the number that are shown, and we cannot even see how big the actual number is... --Kynde (talk) 10:50, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

To directly answer the question, they may be 'more avoiding' the Sun right this moment, but their closest pass was all equally Earth-distant, due to coming from Earth.

Assuming it's been checked that no further outer-planet-and-beyond missions used a slingshot into 'down orbit' from Earth, either for a particular pop back out to the right ejective up-orbit route or even to use a Venus-fly-by slingshot to enhance it. Otherwise, though, their location in the vicinity of Earth is their 'record worst', whatever they're doing now. Practically indistinguishable, in that regard, from Columbus (the sea-going one) or any Apollo mission. 172.70.163.130 16:44, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

By the logic of where their mission started, one could argue that cube sat LICIACube might qualify as our best attempt at avoiding the sun, AND our second-worst attempt at avoiding Dimorphos! 141.101.98.7 14:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

(For this editor's, and others', reference: []s for URLs use space-delimiter, but you can streamline wikilinks with this site's {{w}}-template, using pipes, as {{w|LICIACube}} or {{w|LICIACube|aternate text, if different}}. If in doubt, see what others have mostly done.) 172.70.90.8 15:44, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

...completely forgot to make my main point, in that (by that specific nterpretation of metric), there's probably even better candidates. 172.68.186.133 15:49, 30 December 2024 (UTC)

"approximately 17 metric tons directly to an orbit crossing Mercury requires a rocket the size of the Saturn V stack. Parker masses about forty times that" so ~680 tonnes - pretty sure you're out by three orders of magnitude there, perhaps substitute 'kilograms' or 'kg' for 'metric tons'? 162.158.168.151 (talk) 23:03, 26 December 2024 (UTC) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

this is the comic that breaks the rss - Bb777 (talk) 01:46, 2 March 2025 (UTC)
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