Silicon Teens Sun Flight (1980)
The sun is—well, big surprise!—extremely hot. While its surface, known as the photosphere, has a staggering temperature of about 9,900 degrees Fahrenheit (5,500 degrees Celsius), the sun's atmosphere is even hotter. Much hotter. The so-called corona, which extends millions of kilometers into space, has a temperature of about 1.8 million degrees Fahrenheit (1 million degrees Celsius).
Why the sun’s atmosphere is hotter than its surface is a phenomenon that is still not fully understood by scientists. In August 2018, NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe to find potential answers. The mission that is still active is collecting data about the outer corona—and for that purpose the spacecraft actually enters it. Protected by a 4.5-inch-thick (11.43 cm) carbon-composite heat shield, which can withstand temperatures reaching up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,377 Celsius), the Parker Solar Probe became the first vehicle to fly across the corona in 2021.
Daniel Miller probably had no sense of those dizzying numbers when he naively suggested back in 1980: “Why walk on the moon if you could fly to the sun?” Miller is the founder of the legendary British label Mute Records. And he was involved in a variety of musical projects himself. Among others, he created the band Silicon Teens, which consisted of him and, when meeting up with journalists, a set of actors who stood in for Darryl, Jacki, Paul and Diane—band members he had invented.
On Silicon Teens’ debut LP Music for Parties, Miller covered a bunch of rock ‘n’ roll classics in his signature synthpop manner, but also wrote some original material, including “Sun Flight”, today’s song and the source of the quote above.
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