NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has survived the closest-ever Sun flyby

NASA launched the Parker Solar Probe just 3.8 million miles from the sun’s surface, and it survived. The probe sent back a signal to Earth on the night of December 26, “indicating that it is in good health and functioning normally.” According to NASA.

The mission marks the closest the Parker Solar Probe — or any human object — has ever come to the sun. Detector at December 20its closest approach occurred on December 24, when it flew past the sun’s surface at 430,000 mph. During this time, mission operations lost contact with the probe.

Now that NASA has confirmed the mission’s success, the Parker Solar Probe is expected to send “detailed telemetry data about its status” on January 1. The close flyby is expected to help scientists better understand the solar wind, the sun’s heat and “how high-energy particles accelerate to nearly the speed of light.”

Parker Solar Probe Originally launched by NASA and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in 2018. To survive these close encounters, the Parker Solar Probe is equipped with a sun-facing heat shield that can reach temperatures of about 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit, while the probe itself only reaches a temperature of 85 degrees Fahrenheit.