Parker Solar Probe launched in 2018, and since then, it has repeatedly broken the record for being the closest human-made object to the Sun. With the most recent Venus gravity assist in November 2024, the spacecraft is now set to make its closest approach to the Sun on December 24, 2024.
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Parker Solar Probe moving 394,700 miles per hour (635,300 kilometers per hour) around the Sun, again matching its own record. The spacecraft checked in on Oct. 3 with mission operators at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland — where the spacecraft was also designed and built — with a beacon tone indicating it was in good health and all systems were operating normally.
“This close-up study of the Sun allows Parker Solar Probe to take measurements that help scientists better understand how material in this region gets heated to millions of degrees, trace the origin of the solar wind (a continuous flow of material escaping the Sun), and discover how energetic particles are accelerated to near light speed,” the agency added.
