Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe on Tuesday approached closer to the Sun than any previous spacecraft, marking a significant historic milestone.
During this flyby, the probe endured scorching temperatures exceeding 1,700 degrees Fahrenheit (930 degrees Celsius) as its advanced heat shield withstood the extreme heat.
Launched in August 2018, the Parker Solar Probe embarked on a seven-year mission aimed at deepening our scientific understanding of the Sun and enhancing the ability to forecast space-weather events that can impact life on Earth.
Tuesday’s flyby, which was scheduled to occur precisely at 6:53 am local time (1153 GMT), brought the spacecraft to an astonishing proximity to the Sun. Due to the intense solar environment, mission scientists anticipate confirmation of the event’s success on Friday, after the probe emerges from a communication blackout caused by its closeness to the star.
To illustrate the probe’s closeness, if the distance between Earth and the Sun were scaled down to the length of an American football field, the Parker Solar Probe would have been merely four yards (approximately three meters) from the end zone at the moment of its closest approach, known as perihelion.
“This is one example of Nasa’s bold missions, doing something that no one else has ever done before to answer longstanding questions about our universe,” said Arik Posner, Parker Solar Probe program scientist, in a statement on Monday. “We can’t wait to receive that first status update from the spacecraft and start receiving the science data in the coming weeks.”
Despite the Sun’s blistering heat, the spacecraft’s cutting-edge heat shield ensures that its internal instruments remain at a comfortable room temperature of approximately 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius). Parker’s 4.5-inch-thick heat shield is engineered to withstand temperatures up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,371 degrees Celsius), thanks in part to a specially-designed white coating that reflects much of the Sun’s heat, allowing the spacecraft to maintain its internal systems at safe operating temperatures. This innovative technology enables the probe to venture into the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, which remains hotter than its visible surface.
By venturing into these extreme conditions, the Parker Solar Probe is helping scientists address some of the Sun’s most enduring mysteries, including the origins of the solar wind, the reason the corona is significantly hotter than the Sun’s surface, and the mechanisms behind coronal mass ejections—massive clouds of plasma that are ejected into space.
The flyby on Christmas Eve marks the first of three record-setting close approaches, with the next two scheduled for March 22 and June 19, 2025. Each of these subsequent passes is expected to bring the probe to similarly close distances from the Sun.
