NASA’s Parker Solar Probe made its closest-ever approach to the Sun on Tuesday, becoming the first man-made object to accomplish this feat. Parker should have travelled as close as 6.1 million kilometres to the Sun, gathering important data about its outer atmosphere. The confirmation about these feats should arrive by December 27, as the space agency had to disconnect from the craft during the passage. During this flyby, the spacecraft is said to have reached a speed of 6,92,000kmph, establishing itself as the fastest object created by humanity.
NASA Parker Solar Probe Breaks Records
In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), the official handle of ‘NASA Sun & Space’ confirmed that the Parker Solar Probe began making its closest-ever approach to the Sun. However, soon after the start of the flyby, the space agency highlighted in a separate post that communication with the craft was stopped, and reconnection would not be established till December 27, when it should send its first signal to the Earth-based observatory.
Interestingly, this is not the first time Parker Solar Probe flew close to the Sun. The Christmas Eve flyby was the 22nd such attempt by the spacecraft, and four more flybys will be made in 2025. Other notable approaches include the one made on September 21, 2023, when it hit a speed of 6,35,266 kmph, becoming the fastest human-made object. On Tuesday, it broke its own record again.
To make these extremely close flybys, Parker used gravity boosts from Venus. The NASA spacecraft would revolve around the second planet in the solar system to gain massive acceleration and propel itself towards the Sun. It has made seven such revolutions around Venus since its launch in 2018, the last of which occurred in November.
NASA Parker Solar Probe Collects Important Data from the Sun
The Parker Solar Probe is not making these approaches to the Sun and withstanding temperatures upwards of 980 degrees Celsius to just make new records. NASA is aiming to solve big mysteries that puzzle scientists to date.
The biggest mystery involves the corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun. The standard model of stars suggests that the closer one moves to its core, the higher the temperature. However, the corona does not appear to be following this rule. Scientists have observed that the corona reaches temperatures exceeding 1.1 million degrees Celsius at a certain distance from the Sun; however, the temperature is reduced to a mere 4,100 degrees Celsius, just 1,000 miles closer to the star.
This anomaly suggests there should be an additional mechanism that causes lowered temperatures, but scientists currently do not know why that happens. Apart from this, the NASA spacecraft is also imaging and collecting data about coronal mass ejections (CME), which are the primary source of solar storms or geomagnetic storms on Earth.
Such storms have the capability of disrupting satellite signals, and mobile and Internet connectivity, as well as impact electric grids and sensitive electronic devices such as pacemakers and supercomputers. While CME ejections occur regularly on the Sun, scientists are still not able to build any prediction models due to a lack of data about them.