First time in history: NASA probe enters the Sun's atmosphere

NASA's Parker Rocker is expected to break a historic record after it began to enter the sun's outer atmosphere, known as the corona, last night (Tuesday). Due to the deliberate severance of contact, the task force will only be able to confirm its status on Friday.

“No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory,” Nick Pinkine, mission operations manager at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, said in a NASA blog.

At 6:53 a.m. EST, NASA's Parker Solar Probe was set to skim just 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) from the sun’s surface. Traveling at an astonishing speed of up to 430,000 mph (692,000 kph), the probe will face searing temperatures reaching 1,800°F (982°C).

Launched in 2018, Parker has been inching ever closer to the sun by leveraging Venus flybys to tighten its orbit. Its mission has yielded groundbreaking discoveries, including new insights into the sun’s atmospheric boundaries and detailed imagery of coronal streamers—dramatic, cusp-shaped features seen during solar eclipses.

The probe also captured visible light from Venus during one of its passes, allowing scientists to peer through the planet’s dense clouds and observe its surface. Since Parker first dipped into the sun’s atmosphere in 2021, it has continually pushed the boundaries of solar science, bringing us closer than ever to understanding our star.

* Reuters contributed to this article.