NASA Probe Survives Our Closest-Ever Brush With the Sun

UPDATE Dec 27, 2024 11:11 AM CST

The silence from the Parker Solar Probe ended late Thursday, confirming the spacecraft survived the closest-ever approach to the sun. NASA scientists received a signal from the probe after days of quiet as the spacecraft, protected by a carbon-composite shield, got within 3.8 million miles of the sun's surface—seven times closer to the sun than any previous spacecraft, per CBS News. NASA later said the probe, which faced extreme radiation and temperatures up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, was "safe" and operating normally, per the BBC. "It's a just a total 'Yay, we did it!' moment," says Nicola Fox, NASA's head of science, per the Guardian. The probe is expected to send back detailed telemetry data on Jan. 1.

Dec 24, 2024 6:34 AM CST

Confirmation awaits, but NASA scientists appear to have pulled off a remarkable Christmas Eve voyage on two fronts:

• The sun: The space agency's Parker Solar Probe by now should have wrapped up a flight to within 3.8 million miles of the sun, the closest any craft has ever come. For context, if the Earth and sun were at opposite ends of a football field, the solar probe "would be on the 4-yard line," NASA's Joe Westlake told the AP.

• The speed: During the flyby, the probe would have been traveling at a hard-to-fathom 430,000 miles per hour—"the fastest object ever made by humans," per the New York Times.
• Confirmation: The record-breaking pass happened at 6:53am ET if all went well, per Space.com. However, NASA won't get its first proof until Friday.
• The mission: Parker launched in 2018 and has made 21 previous solar flybys, but Tuesday's breaks the previous record by hundreds of thousands of miles and ventures into a solar region never before explored. After Tuesday, it will make two more flybys before the mission is complete, the last in June. "It's a voyage of discovery," says NASA's Nicky Fox. "We really are going into the unknown. Nothing has flown through the atmosphere of a star, and no other mission will for a long time."

(More NASA stories.)