In the early morning hours (Eastern Time) on Christmas Eve, the Parker Solar Probe was scheduled to swoop down in its closest orbit yet—3.7 million miles (6.1 million km) from the Sun’s surface! The Probe will be out of contact with Mission Control until Dec. 27, when it can signal its success. The transmission of its telemetry will occur in early January 2025.
“On Christmas Eve of this year, Parker Solar Probe will be the closest human made object ever to a star,” Nour Rawafi, project scientist for the mission at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab told a media roundtable at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union Dec. 10. “We will be embracing a star,” he said.
