The Parker probe flies away on Saturday to “touch the Sun”

This mission will aim to answer a question that tears scientists: why is the sun’s corona infinitely hotter than its surface?

This Saturday, and armed with a heat-resistant shield, the Parker probe should reach the Sun and be the first object built by man to make this crossing.

For 7 years, this mission will allow the spacecraft to approach the Sun 24 times, at a distance of about 6 million kilometers.

“We have to go where it happens, where all these mysterious things happen,” said Nicky Fox, a member of Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory and lead scientist.

Parker would address several issues such as the problem of global warming of the solar corona or how to better predict space weather.