NASA's Parker Solar Probe has successfully completed the closest-ever approach to the sun by any human-made object, the agency announced on Friday. The spacecraft passed just 6.1 million kilometers from the solar surface on December 24, flying into the sun's outer atmosphere known as the corona. Despite enduring temperatures of up to 982 degrees Celsius and moving at speeds of up to 692,000 km/h, the probe is said to be 'safe' and operating normally.
The operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland received a signal, a beacon tone, from the probe just before midnight on Thursday. The spacecraft is expected to send detailed telemetry data about its status on January 1, providing valuable information to scientists about Earth's closest star.
The Parker Solar Probe, launched in 2018, has been gradually circling closer towards the sun, using flybys of Venus to tighten its orbit. The mission aims to help scientists better understand how material in the sun's outermost layer, the corona, gets heated to millions of degrees, trace the origin of the solar wind, and discover how energetic particles are accelerated to near light speed.
Dr. Joseph Westlake, NASA's heliophysics director, stated that the data collected by the probe is rewriting textbooks on how the sun works. He described the mission as an 'amazing achievement,' noting that the technologies developed for this purpose have allowed for a deeper understanding of the sun's operations.
Looking ahead, the team is preparing for more flybys in the extended mission phase, hoping to capture unique events and further expand our knowledge of the sun. NASA's Parker Solar Probe continues to pave the way for groundbreaking discoveries in solar science.