NASA's Parker Solar Probe is still circling the sun making history and is preparing for another record-breaking approach this week. On December 24 at 6:53 a.m. ET, the spacecraft's orbit will take it just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface, according to the space agency. This will be the closest it (or any other probe) has ever been to the sun. This milestone will mark the completion of the Parker Solar Probe's 22nd orbit around our star and the first of the final three closest flybys planned for your mission. The spacecraft, which launched in 2018, is expected to complete a total of 24 orbits.
“No man-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly return data from uncharted territory,” said Nick Pinkine, operations manager for the Parker Solar Probe mission at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. , in a statement the nasa blog. “We are excited to hear from the spacecraft as it orbits the Sun.”
The Parker Solar Probe will travel at about 430,000 miles per hour at the time of its closest pass. It will ping the computer to confirm its health on December 27, when it will be far enough from the sun to resume communications.
