A NASA Probe Dares to Touch the Sun

The Parker Solar Probe undertakes a perilous voyage through the Sun’s atmosphere

The Parker Solar probe is a remarkable spacecraft. Every few months it barrels through the Sun’s atmosphere, daring to travel closer to our star than any other spacecraft in history. When it last did so, on December 29, it hit speeds of almost six hundred thousand kilometres per hour while facing temperatures of over one million degrees.

That, of course, is perilous. Few spacecraft would have the strength to resist the Sun’s heat or radiation. In order to survive, the Parker Solar Probe is protected by a special heat shield; one so effective that the internal temperatures of the probe rarely rise above room temperatures. Each flyby is also mercifully short, lasting only a few weeks before the spacecraft swings back towards the orbit of Venus.

All that effort is worth it. The probe has allowed scientists to explore the Sun in closer detail than ever before, helping them to answer long standing questions about its outer atmosphere — the solar corona — and its magnetic fields. These, scientists now believe, explain the origins of the solar wind, a constant stream of charged particles flying through the solar system.