A NASA spacecraft is set to make history this Christmas as it prepares to make its closest approach to the Sun, setting a record 6.2 million kilometers from the surface.
Launched in August 2018, the agency’s flagship Parker Solar Probe is on a seven-year mission to deepen scientific understanding of our star and help predict space weather events that affect life on Earth.
Its closest approach to date will be on Tuesday, December 24 at 4:53 a.m. local time (11:53 GMT).
If the distance between the Earth and the Sun is the length of an American football field, the spacecraft would be about four yards (meters) from the end zone at that point.
“This is an example of NASA’s bold missions, doing something no one else has done before to answer long-standing questions about our universe,” Parker Solar Probe program scientist Arch Posner said in a statement. What is it.”
“We can’t wait to receive this first status update from the spacecraft and begin acquiring science data in the coming weeks.”
During this closest approach — known as perihelion — the mission teams will lose direct contact with Parker, relying on a “beacon tone” to confirm the spacecraft’s status this Friday.
Although the heat shield will withstand scorching temperatures of around 870 to 930 °C, the probe’s internals will remain at room temperature – 29 °C – as it explores the Sun’s outer atmosphere, known as the corona. is called
Not only will the temperature be extremely high, but Parker will also be moving at a speed of about 690,000 km/h, fast enough to fly from the US capital Washington to Tokyo in less than a minute.
“No human-made object has ever come this close to a star, so Parker is truly uncharted territory,” said Nick Pinkin, operations manager for the Parker Solar Probe mission at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel. will return data from.” Maryland
“We’re excited to hear back from the spacecraft as it orbits the Sun.”
By stepping into these extreme conditions, Parker is helping scientists tackle some of the Sun’s biggest mysteries: how the solar wind is generated, why the corona is hotter than the surface below, and how coronal mass ejections occur. is – large clouds of plasma that shoot into space. – are made.
The Christmas Eve flyby is the first of three record-setting close passes, with the next two — March 22, 2025, and June 19, 2025 — both bringing the Parker Solar Probe back to a similar close distance from the Sun. is expected.