Last August, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe began a three-month journey toward the sun. During its mission to study the star at the center of our solar system, the probe will attempt something never done before. It will fly into the atmosphere around the sun.
During its seven-year mission, the solar probe will orbit the sun 24 times. As it circles the star, instruments onboard will examine how the sun creates the solar wind. This stream of charged particles can disrupt technology on Earth.
On the final leg of its journey, the probe will fly through the sun’s corona. As it does, it will gather data on how heat moves through the outermost layer of the sun’s atmosphere. This final approach will bring Parker about seven times closer to the sun than any previous spacecraft.
“It is a voyage of discovery,” says Nicola Fox, the mission’s project scientist. “We’re going somewhere we’ve never been before.”