NASA's Parker Solar Probe Captures Closest-ever Images Of The Sun

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The Parker Solar Probe was 1,500 pounds of ambition when it launched from Florida in 2018, on a seven-year mission to "touch the Sun." The goal was to have the probe orbit 24 times, using Venus for a gravity assist to get closer and closer with each pass.

Recently, the probe made its closest pass yet, with very little room for error.

A 4.5-inch-thick carbon-composite shield keeps its instruments protected from up to 2,500° temperatures, and even being a few degrees of angle off would spell disaster. The probe does employ solar panels for power, which also tuck in behind the shadow of the shield so they don't get "too much of a good thing" with 5.5 million watts' worth of sunlight.

In fact, the shield is so efficient that the back of the probe stays at a mere 90 degrees, letting the probe become a modern-day Icarus without becoming a... well, modern-day Icarus.

What about the Sun itself? Well, the surface runs around 10,000°, yet its corona can run at nearly two million degrees . It may be because of how the Sun's magnetic fields can trap particles trying to escape, letting those near-surface temps soar way higher than the surface itself.

That's one of the weird things the Parker mission hopes to gain some insight toward. Which brings us back to Christmas Eve, 2024.

This month, NASA released these scorching images beamed back from just 3.8 million miles off the Sun's surface, or about 96% the distance between us and our nearest star. It also set a record for the fastest manmade object ever, at 430,000 mph (That would get you from New York to LA in 23 seconds!).