NASA's Parker Solar Probe has successfully completed its closest approach to the sun yet, transmitting signals confirming its safety and continued operation. The spacecraft is expected to provide valuable data about its experience, including insights into solar wind, particle acceleration, and the sun's atmosphere.
The US space agency said the Parker Solar Probe was safe and 'operating normally' after travelling within 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) of the sun’s surface on Christmas Eve. Nasa said the mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, received the signal on Boxing Day evening that the probe had survived. The spacecraft is expected to send back detailed data about its condition and experiences on New Year’s Day.
“Following its record-breaking closest approach to the sun, Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe has transmitted a beacon tone back to Earth indicating it’s in good health and operating normally,” Nasa said in a statement.The data could help them measure how material is heated to millions of degrees, find where solar wind comes from and learn how energetic particles reach near light speeds. Since the spacecraft launched in 2018, it has circled gradually closer to the sun – flying past Venus in order to use the planet’s gravity to move it into a tighter orbit. When it first passed into the sun’s atmosphere in 2021, the probe made unexpected discoveries about the boundary of the corona. As well as temperatures of up to 982°C, the probe has endured radiation that could have frazzled its on-board electronics.While the probe’s record of 3.8 million miles from the sun may not appear close, this is over 38 times closer than the earth is to the sun at over 147 million miles (237 million km). In comparison, the probe’s speed of 430,000 miles per hour – built up from the sun’s immense gravitational pull – is the equivalent of flying from London to New York in less than 30 second
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