NASA’s Parker Solar Probe made history again, completing its closest ever approach to the Sun on December 24, 2024.

The spacecraft, hurtling through the Sun’s corona at 430,000 miles per hour and enduring temperatures approaching 1,800°F, ventured just 3.8 million miles from the Sun’s surface.

After a tense period of no contact, mission controllers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) received a reassuring beacon signal late on December 26 that confirmed Parker’s health and operational status.

As scientists await detailed data from the flyby, which is scheduled to arrive on January 1, 2025, the probe’s survival marks a critical milestone in the scientific effort to unravel the mysteries of our nearest star.

What is Parker Solar Probe?

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is a ground-breaking mission that will plunge into the Sun’s atmosphere, enduring extreme heat and radiation, to provide humanity with the first-ever detailed sample of a star’s outer layers.

The spacecraft, which was launched in 2018, is equipped with cutting-edge thermal engineering and instruments to study the sun’s magnetic fields, plasma, energetic particles and the solar wind.

The probe is named after the late Eugene N. Parker, a pioneer in solar physics who predicted the existence of the solar wind.

Designed to orbit the Sun in highly elliptical loops, Parker uses Venus’ gravity to accelerate and adjust its orbit for a close encounter with the Sun’s corona.

Why it matters

Discoveries by the Parker Solar Probe have already changed our understanding of the Sun and its influence on Earth.

Answering long-standing questions—such as why the corona is hotter than the Sun’s surface and how the solar wind accelerates—provides critical data for space weather forecasting.

These findings protect satellites, power grids and astronauts from solar radiation.

“This is a monumental and bold achievement,” Helene Winters, Parker Solar Probe project manager at Johns Hopkins APL, said in a statement.

“Parker Solar Probe is changing the field of heliophysics. After years of braving the heat and dust of the inner solar system, capturing bursts of solar energy and radiation that no spacecraft has ever seen, Parker Solar Probe continues to thrive.”

What did the Parker Solar Probe achieve?

On December 24, 2024, Parker completed its closest ever approach to the Sun, traveling just 3.8 million miles from its surface at a record speed of 430,000 miles per hour.

For context, if the distance between the Earth and the Sun were equivalent to the length of a football field, this closest approach would be about 4 yards from the end zone.

This latest flyby marks the spacecraft’s 23rd close flyby and brings it deeper into the corona than ever before. When the data is returned, it will provide unprecedented detail about the Sun’s behavior during its 11-year solar maximum.

NASA confirmed the probe’s health on December 27, 2024, when a beacon tone signaled its successful navigation through the Sun’s outer atmosphere.

The mission team expects to receive detailed telemetry data on January 1, 2025, which will include observations of the solar wind, coronal heating, and the origin of high-energy solar particles.

Previous mission highlights include: sampling particles and magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere, making it the first spacecraft to “touch the sun” in 2021; taking visible-wavelength images of Venus’ surface and studying its atmosphere; observation of dust thinning near the sun, confirming the theoretical dust-free zone; and detection of magnetic reconnection events in the corona associated with solar wind acceleration and coronal heating.

What happens next?

Parker Solar Probe’s journey isn’t over yet.

It will continue on its highly elliptical orbit and make two more close passes of the Sun in March and June 2025.

After completing its primary mission in June 2025, the probe will remain in orbit to conduct further observations until it runs out of onboard fuel.

Without corrective thrusts, the solar wind will gradually push the spacecraft out of alignment with Earth, ending its ability to transmit data.

When the mission ends, most of the probe will burn up, leaving only its carbon heat shield to orbit the Sun for potentially billions of years, until the very end of the Solar System itself.