The Parker Solar Probe, never this close to the Sun

Published on December 17, 2024 at 9:55 p.m. / Modified on December 17, 2024 at 9:56 p.m.

4 mins. reading

This is a leap into the blaze that astronomers have been waiting for for more than sixty years. On December 24, 2024, at 12:53 p.m. in Switzerland, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which has been traveling through the Solar System for six years, will reach the point of its mission closest to the Sun, becoming the first human machine ever to be passed so close to a star. Speeding at the staggering (and completely unprecedented) speed of 692,000 km/h, the spacecraft will fly over the star at “only” 6.16 million kilometers of altitude, barely 4% of the Earth-Sun distance!

The idea is not to break records. But to compare the data collected during this dive with those obtained by Solar Orbiter, a spacecraft of the European Space Agency (ESA). Then to try, through learned intercomparisons, to reveal some secrets of the Sun and in particular of its “crown”. Contemplated in the sky, the latter has the appearance of a sphere. But when an eclipse occurs, hiding its disk behind the Moon, structures appear. “Plumes” and “jets” erupt from the star, tracing large open or closed loops in the twilight limb. It is the solar corona, the upper part of the atmosphere of our star where plasma gases, made up of electrons, protons and ions, circulate, through a whole pipeline of magnetic tubes connected to the surface.

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