(Reuters) – NASA said on Friday that the Parker Solar Probe is “safe” and operating normally after successfully completing the closest approach to the Sun by any man-made object.
The spacecraft passed just 3.8 million kilometers (6.1 million miles) from the sun's surface on Dec. 24, is flying through the outer space of the sun called the corona, on a mission to help scientists learn more about the closest star to Earth.
The agency said a team working at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland received a signal, a tone of light, from the probe just before midnight on Thursday.
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The spacecraft is expected to send detailed telemetry data about its position on Jan. 1, added NASA.
Traveling at speeds of up to 430,000 mph (692,000 kph), the spacecraft endures temperatures of up to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (982 degrees Celsius), according to NASA's website.
“This close study of the Sun allows the Parker Solar Probe to take measurements that help scientists better understand how the material in this area is heated to millions of degrees, trace the origin of the solar wind (the continuous flow of material escaping from the Sun), and find out how energetic particles are accelerated to close proximity. of the speed of light,” the agency added.
The Parker Solar Probe was launched in 2018 and has been orbiting ever closer to the sun, using flybys of Venus to force it into a tight orbit with the sun.
(Reporting by Bipasha Dey and Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru; Editing by Kate Mayberry)
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