Parker Solar Probe Phones Home! Spacecraft Survives Record-Breaking Closest Pass To The Sun

Parker Solar Probe has survived achieving the record-breaking closest pass to the Sun by a human-made spacecraft ever – and phoned home even earlier than expected, confirming it survived “touching the Sun” and reaching the pinnacle of its mission.

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The probe carried out its closest approach on December 24, where it whizzed past just 6.1 million kilometers (3.8 million miles) from the Sun’s surface while moving at around 690,000 kilometers per hour (430,000 miles per hour) – making it the fastest spacecraft ever.

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Parker Solar Probe launched in 2018 to get closer to the Sun than humanity ever has before. Its mission to “touch the Sun” means flying through the Sun’s corona, its weak outer atmosphere – at scorching temperatures of up to 980°C (1,800°F) – to try and solve the mystery of why the Sun’s corona gets heated to millions of degrees,

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Roadvirus said:

♪ And tell me, did you sail across the sun? ♪

- Train, "Drops of Jupiter"

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