NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is safe and functioning normally after successfully completing its closest approach to the Sun by any human-made object, the space agency has confirmed.
The spacecraft passed just 6.1 million kilometers from the Sun’s surface on December 24, flying through the outer atmosphere of the Sun – the corona – on a mission to help scientists learn more about Earth’s nearest star, reports The Guardian, via RKS NEWS.
The agency said that the operations team at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland received the signal from the probe just before midnight on Thursday.
The spacecraft is expected to send detailed telemetry data about its status on January 1.
Traveling at speeds of up to 430,000 mph (692,000 km/h), the spacecraft endured temperatures of up to 982°C.
NASA stated: “This close study of the Sun allows the Parker Solar Probe to take measurements that help scientists better understand how material in this region heats up to millions of degrees, trace the origin of the solar wind (a continuous flow of material from the Sun), and discover how energetic particles are accelerated to nearly the speed of light.”
Launched in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe has gradually been orbiting closer to the Sun, using flybys of Venus to gravitationally adjust its orbit and bring it closer to the Sun.
