NASA’s Parker Solar Probe ‘Safe’ After Closest-Ever Approach to the Sun

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe: NASA has made history with the Parker solar probe setting up a very near distance to the Sun, becoming the closest man-made object ever to do so. NASA has shared an update about the "Parker Solar Probe", which stated that the spacecraft is safe and normal after completing the closest-ever proximity to the home star.

Upon its record-setting closest approach to the Sun, the probe sent a beacon tone back to Earth, the US space agency, indicating the spacecraft's healthy status.

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It had the closest encounter with the sun.

On Christmas Eve, December 24, the Nasa spacecraft ventured to within less than 3.8 million miles from the surface of the Sun. The Parker Solar Probe flew through the outermost atmosphere or corona. It will reveal secrets about the intense heat of the Sun, as well as the solar wind. The spacecraft is moving at the speed of 430,000 mph and could resist temperatures as high as 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

According to Nasa, “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 detailed telemetry information with respect to Parker Solar Probe would be available on January 1.

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On a mission to touch the Sun, #ParkerSolarProbe reported that all systems are A-okay during its third close approach to the surface of our closest star! ????With the spacecraft in good health, it will continue its mission until the end of the month. More: https://t.co/HddnhCqFRM pic.twitter.com/yMZ8UXmy18

— NASA (@NASA) September 3, 2019

What exactly is the Parker Solar Probe?

Nasa's Parker Solar Probe is a program designed to look at different areas of the Sun-Earth system which also affect people's lives and societies directly. The agency's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland is doing space work for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington for Living with a Star.

The Probe was launched in 2018, and this is already the 21st pass over the Sun for the device, and the Christmas Eve visit is record-breaking according to BBC.

The mission, called Parker Solar Probe, aims to study the outermost part of the sun's atmosphere, an ultrahot region called the corona. Scientists have long been trying to figure out why the outer layer of the Sun's atmosphere is 100 times hotter than its normal surface.

Such an important milestone in solar research, this is actually the first mission of its kind that aims to bring scientists closer than ever to understanding the Sun's complications and its functions in the solar system.

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