NASA said Friday that it received a signal from the Parker Solar Probe confirming that the spacecraft had survived its closest flyby of the sun. The approach took it just 6.1 million kilometers from the surface, passing inside the solar corona and enabling unprecedented data collection in the vicinity of a star. A few million miles may seem like a pretty long distance, but to put things into perspective, POT explains: “If the solar system were shrunk to a Sun-Earth distance the length of a football field, Parker Solar Probe would be just four meters from the end zone.”
The probe's current orbit brings it closer to the Sun about every three months. It will turn again for two more close flybys in 2025, on March 22 and June 19. The probe is expected to transmit data from its last close approach soon, once it is in a better location to do so. “The data that will come down from the spacecraft will be new information about a place we, as humanity, have never been,” said Joe Westlake, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters. “It's an amazing achievement.”
