NASA probe makes closest ever pass by the sun

NASA's Parker Solar Probe makes history by flying closest to the sun, gathering data to forecast space-weather events.

NASA’s pioneering Parker Solar Probe made history on December 24 when it flew closer to the sun than any other spacecraft, with its heat shield exposed to scorching temperatures topping 930 degrees Celsius.

Launched in August 2018, the spaceship is on a seven-year mission to deepen scientific understanding of our star and help forecast space-weather events that can affect life on the earth.

Tuesday’s historic flyby should have occurred at precisely 5:23 am IST (1153 GMT), although mission scientists will have to wait for confirmation until December 28 as they lose contact with the craft for several days due to its proximity to the sun.

“Right now, the Parker Solar Probe is flying closer to a star than anything has ever been before,” at 6.1 million kilometers away, NASA official Nicky Fox said in a video on social media on December 24 morning.

“It is just a total ‘yay, we did it’ moment.”

If the distance between the earth and the sun is the equivalent to the length of an American football field, the spacecraft should have been about four metres from the end zone at the moment of closest approach, a point that scientists call perihelion.

“This is one example of NASA’s bold missions, doing something that no one else has ever done before to answer long-standing questions about our universe,” Parker Solar Probe program scientist Arik Posner said in a statement on December 30.