NASA reported that on the night of Dec. 26, just before midnight, they received the signal from the Parker Solar Probe that it had survived its closest pass to the Sun, and all systems were operating normally. The Probe skimmed the Sun on Dec. 24, coming within 3.8 million miles away from its surface, and traveling at about 430,000 mph. For comparison, this would mean a flight between London and New York would take less than 30 seconds (approximately Mach 565!).
Dr. Nicola Fox, head of science at NASA explained to the press, “We are 93 million miles away from the Sun, so if I put the Sun and the Earth one meter apart, Parker Solar Probe is 4 cm from the Sun—so that’s close.”
The mission is part of the “Living with a Star” program by NASA, and seeks to answer burning questions about the Sun, such as why the corona—the upper portion of the Sun’s surface that we see during a solar eclipse—is hotter than the Sun itself; how the solar wind is generated and interacts with the planets’ atmospheres, and how the vast atmosphere of the Sun—the heliosphere—protects the Solar System from interstellar cosmic rays.
