NASA’s Parker Solar Probe continues its historic journey around the sun and is preparing for yet another record-breaking approach this week. Scheduled for December 24 at 6:53 AM ET, the spacecraft will orbit to come within just 3.8 million miles of the solar surface, as noted by the space agency. This will be the closest any probe has ever ventured to the sun. This significant event will conclude the Parker Solar Probe’s 22nd orbit of our star, marking the first of the final three closest flybys planned for its mission. Launched in 2018, the probe is anticipated to achieve a total of 24 orbits.
“No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory,” expressed Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe mission operations manager at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, in a statement available on NASA’s blog. “We’re excited to hear back from the spacecraft when it swings back around the Sun.”
During its unprecedented close pass, the Parker Solar Probe will be traveling at approximately 430,000 miles per hour. It is set to communicate its health status back to the team on December 27, once it has distanced itself sufficiently from the sun to re-establish communications.
