Parker probe calls home after getting closer to the Sun than anyone else

Dec. 27 () –

Following its record-breaking closest approach to the Sun, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has transmitted a beacon tone to Earth indicating that it is in good condition and works normally.

The mission operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) received the signal just before midnight on December 26 (0500 UTC December 27), NASA reports.

Parker Solar Probe has phoned home!

After passing just 3.8 million miles from the solar surface on Dec. 24 — the closest solar flyby in history — we have received Parker Solar Probe’s beacon tone confirming the spacecraft is safe. https://t.co/zbWT7iDVtP

— NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) December 27, 2024

The team was out of contact with the spacecraft during the closest approach, which occurred on December 24, with Parker Solar Probe traveling just 6.1 million kilometers from the solar surface while moving at about 692,000 kilometers per hour. This spacecraft has withstood blazing temperatures of more than a million degrees Celsius while keeping the probe’s instruments at room temperature: around 29 degrees Celsius.

The spacecraft is expected to send detailed telemetry data about its status on January 1.

This close-up study of the Sun allows the Parker Solar Probe to take measurements that help scientists better understand how the material in this region is heated to millions of degreestrace the origin of the solar wind (a continuous flow of material escaping the Sun), and discover how energetic particles accelerate to near the speed of light.

Previous close passes have helped scientists identify the origins of structures in the solar wind and map the outer limit of the Sun’s atmosphere.

The mission has been preparing to reach this historic milestone since its launch on August 12, 2018, an event attended by the probe’s namesake, Dr. Eugene Parker, a pioneering astrophysicist in the solar research field of heliophysics. .