NASA spacecraft successfully completes closest-ever approach to the sun

NASA said on Friday that its Parker Solar Probe was "safe" and operating normally after successfully completing the closest-ever approach to the sun by any human-made object.

The spacecraft passed just 6.1 million kilometres from the solar surface on Dec. 24, flying into the sun's outer atmosphere called the corona, on a mission to help scientists learn more about Earth's closest star.

The agency said the operations team at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland received the signal, a beacon tone, from the probe just before midnight on Thursday.

The spacecraft is expected to send detailed telemetry data about its status on Jan. 1, NASA said.

Moving at up to 692,000 km/h, the spacecraft endured temperatures of up to 982 C, according to the NASA website.

WATCH | What NASA hopes to learn from the solar probe's mission:

Unique NASA probe aims to unlock mysteries of the sun

11 days ago

Duration 2:06

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe has made its closest fly-by of the sun yet, allowing it to collect samples that may unlock mysteries such as why the sun’s outermost layer — the corona — is so hot.

"This close-up study of the sun allows Parker Solar Probe to take measurements that help scientists better understand how material in this region gets heated to millions of degrees, trace the origin of the solar wind (a continuous flow of material escaping the sun), and discover how energetic particles are accelerated to near light speed," the agency noted.

"We're rewriting the textbooks on how the sun works with the data from this probe," Dr. Joseph Westlake, NASA's heliophysics director, told Reuters.

"This mission was theorized in the '50s," he said, adding that it is an "amazing achievement to create technologies that let us delve into our understanding of how the sun operates."

The Parker Solar Probe was launched in 2018 and has been gradually circling closer toward the sun, using flybys of Venus to gravitationally pull it into a tighter orbit with the sun.

Westlake said the team is preparing for even more flybys in the extended mission phase, hoping to capture unique events.

WATCH | Still plenty of data left for solar probe to collect:

What's next for NASA's solar probe after its closest approach to the sun?

8 days ago

Duration 0:38

Joseph Westlake, NASA's heliophysics director, says the agency's Parker Solar Probe's prime mission is winding down, but there's still plenty of data left for the spacecraft to collect. The probe safely completed its closest-ever approach to the sun on Friday.