NASA’s Parker Solar Probe just phoned home. The agency confirmed on Friday that the spacecraft is alive after its closest-ever approach to the Sun. Parker flew through the Sun’s outermost atmospheric layer called Corona on December 24 from the closest distance a man-made object has reached.
In an update, NASA said that Parker transmitted a ‘beacon tone’ back to Earth confirming that it’s in good health and its operations are normal.
Parker Solar Probe has phoned home!
After passing just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface on Dec. 24 — the closest solar flyby in history — we have received Parker Solar Probe’s beacon tone confirming the spacecraft is safe.
— NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) December 27, 2024
“The mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland received the signal just before midnight EST, on the night of Dec. 26,” NASA said in a statement.
ALSO SEE: Parker Solar Probe Breaks Record With Closest Ever Sun Flyby, NASA Hopes It Survived
Travelling at nearly 70,000 kilometres per hour, the probe was just about 6.1 million kilometres from the Sun’s surface. It is the closest Parker will ever get to the Sun in its mission which began in 2018. NASA says it will receive telemetry data on its status on January 1.
Parker’s previous closest approach was in 2021 and the December 24 flyby was Parker’s 22nd. It will reportedly make two more flybys before ending its 7-year planned mission.
The objective of the mission is to study the Sun up close and unravel its mysteries. NASA aims to find out why the Corona heats up to a million degrees Celsius when its surface is around 5,500 degrees Celsius, where do solar winds originate from and how do energetic particles get accelerated to near light speed.
NASA says the last 21 flybys have helped scientists pinpoint the origins of structures in the solar wind and map the outer boundary of the Corona.
ALSO SEE: NASA’s Parker Solar Probe Captures Boiling Hot Surface Of Venus
(Image: NASA)
