NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Approaches Record-Breaking Close Flyby of the Sun

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is making history with its closest-ever flyby of the Sun, passing just 3.8 million miles from its surface on Christmas Eve. This milestone, known as perihelion, occurred at 6:53 AM Eastern Time (11:53 GMT) on December 24, 2024, marking a significant moment in the spacecraft's seven-year mission to study the Sun and its influence on space weather.

The mission team lost contact with the spacecraft following the flyby and will not receive a "beacon tone" confirming its status until Friday, December 27. However, the last transmission on December 20 confirmed that the probe was operating normally, received through NASA's Deep Space Network in Canberra, Australia.

Dr. Nicola Fox, NASA’s head of science, shared her excitement about the probe’s achievement: "Right now, Parker Solar Probe is flying closer to a star than anything has ever been before." Launched in August 2018, the probe is named after solar physicist Eugene Parker, who passed away in 2022 at the age of 94. It aims to improve our understanding of the Sun, its solar wind, and phenomena like coronal mass ejections, while also helping to forecast space weather that can impact life on Earth.

Despite the vast distance of 3.8 million miles, the Parker Solar Probe will be within the Sun’s outer atmosphere, known as the corona. To put it into perspective, if the 93 million miles between Earth and the Sun were scaled down to 100 meters, the spacecraft would be just 4 meters away at its closest approach.

The probe is equipped with a carbon-composite heat shield that is 4.5 inches thick (11.43 cm), designed to withstand temperatures as high as 1,700°F (930°C), keeping its instruments at a stable, room-temperature range. The spacecraft is traveling at an astonishing speed of 430,000 mph (690,000 km/h), more than 550 times the speed of sound.

The Parker Solar Probe is shedding light on some of the Sun’s greatest mysteries, including the origins of solar wind and why the Sun’s corona is hotter than its surface. Through flybys of Venus, the probe has also provided new insights into the planet’s surface by capturing visible and near-infrared light, revealing details previously unseen through radar and infrared imagery.

This Christmas Eve flyby is just the first of three record-setting encounters with the Sun. The next two perihelion events are scheduled for March 22, 2025, and June 19, 2025, and will bring the probe even closer to the Sun’s surface. Arik Posner, NASA’s program scientist for the Parker Solar Probe, said, “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.”