NASA announced Friday that its Parker Solar Probe is “safe” and operating as expected after achieving the closest approach to the Sun by a man-made object.
The spacecraft passed just 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) from the sun’s surface on Dec. 24, flying through the sun’s outer atmosphere called the corona, helping scientists learn more about the closest star to Earth. On a mission to help.
During this closest approach — known as perihelion — the mission teams lost direct contact with Parker, relying on a “beacon tone” to confirm the spacecraft’s position.
The operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland received the signal from the probe just before midnight Thursday, the agency said.
The spacecraft is expected to send detailed telemetry data about its position on January 1, NASA added.
According to NASA’s website, the spacecraft, traveling at speeds of 430,000 mph (692,000 km/h), endured temperatures of up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982 degrees Celsius).
“This close study of the Sun allows the Parker Solar Probe to make measurements that help scientists better understand how material in this region is heated to millions of degrees, tracing the origin of the solar wind. (the continuous flow of material from the Sun), and explore how energetic particles are accelerated to near the speed of light,” the agency added.
The Parker Solar Probe was launched in 2018 and is slowly orbiting the Sun, using the flybys of Venus to pull it into a tight orbit with the Sun.
The Christmas Eve flyby was 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. was expected.
Additional input from AFP.