WEB DESK: NASA’s Parker Solar Probe achieved a historic milestone on Tuesday by entering the Sun’s outer atmosphere, known as the corona, marking an unprecedented step in solar exploration.
The mission aims to unlock critical insights about Earth’s closest star, advancing our understanding of its dynamics and behavior.
“As Parker gets very close to its target, the data it returns will be from outside the science previously discussed or contemplated,” said Nick Pinkine, mission operations manager at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, in a NASA blog.
The spacecraft is set to zoom into an astonishing 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) from the Sun’s surface at 6:53 a.m. EST (1153 GMT), flying at speeds ramping up to 430,000 miles an hour (692,000 kph). The disappearance of signals from the probe, however, during its close flyby has led officials to expect confirmation of the craft’s health this Friday.
Able to withstand temperatures up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982 degrees Celsius), the Parker Solar Probe keeps on producing major ground-breaking results. The probe brought its first science visit to the solar atmosphere in 2021 and has since revealed truths about the limits of the Sun’s atmosphere while producing very close images of coronal streamers resembling cusp-like formations against the backdrop of a solar eclipse.
Launched in 2018, Parker gradually approached the Sun by conducting multiple Venus-gravity assists to tighten her orbit. One of her instruments recorded visible light from Venus to analyze its surface by thus tapping into a surprising way of peering through the planet’s thick clouds.
