NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will fly closer to the sun than ever before on Christmas Eve

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is still orbiting the sun and making history, preparing for another record-setting approach this week. On December 24 at 6:53 a.m. ET, the spacecraft’s orbit will take just 3.8 million miles from the sun’s surface, according to the space agency. This will be the closest – or any probe – to the Sun ever. This milestone will mark the completion of the Parker Solar Probe’s 22nd orbit around our star, and the first of three planned close flybys. Its mission. The vehicle, which was launched in 2018, is expected to complete 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,” Nick Behnken, Parker Solar Probe mission operations director at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, said in a statement. NASA blog. “We’re excited to hear the spacecraft’s response as it swings back around the sun.”

The Parker Solar Probe will travel at about 430,000 miles per hour in its closest ever pass. It will send a message to the team to confirm its health on December 27, when it will be far enough from the sun to resume communications.