A NASA spacecraft is “safe” after making the closest-ever approach to the sun by a human-made object, the space agency says.
The Parker Solar Probe came within 3.8 million miles of the sun’s surface on Christmas Eve, NASA said.
It travelled at 430,000 miles per hour as it flew into our nearest star’s outer atmosphere, called the corona, enduring temperatures of up to 982C.
The agency said the mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, received the signal on Boxing Day evening.
The spacecraft, which was on a mission to help scientists learn more about the sun, is expected to send back detailed data about its condition and experiences on New Year’s Day.
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“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.
Scientists hope the mission will take measurements to help them better understand how material near the sun gets heated to millions of degrees, find out where solar wind comes from, and discover how energetic particles are accelerated to near light speed.
The Parker Solar Probe was launched in 2018 and has been gradually circling closer towards the sun, flying past Venus to use the planet’s gravity to move it into a tighter orbit.
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