NEWSLETTER
NASA sent its Parker solar probe just 3.8 million miles from the Sun's surface and it survived. The probe transmitted a signal to Earth on the night of December 26, “indicating that it is in good condition and functioning normally.” according to nasa.
The mission marks the closest the Parker Solar Probe, or any human-human object, has ever been to the Sun. The probe began its mission on December 20and its closest approach occurred on December 24, when it flew at 430,000 miles per hour beyond the solar surface. Mission operations were out of contact with the probe during this time.
Now that NASA has confirmation of the mission's success, it expects the Parker Solar Probe to send “detailed telemetry data about its status” on January 1. The close flyby is supposed to help scientists better understand the solar wind, the Sun's heat and how “energetic particles accelerate to near the speed of light.”
The Parker Solar Probe was first launched by NASA and the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in 2018. It is designed to study why the corona, the atmosphere surrounding the sun, gets so hot. To survive these close encounters, the Parker Solar Probe is equipped with a sun-facing heat shield that reaches around 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, while the probe itself remains at just 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
