A NASA probe is set to make history this Christmas Eve as it becomes the closest human-made object to the sun. Tomorrow at 11:53 GMT, the Parker Solar Probe will pass within just 3.8 million miles (6.1 million km) of the sun’s surface. That is more than eight times closer than the distance between our home star and the nearest planet, Mercury. As it reaches its closest point, the probe will also become the fastest human-made object ever made as it reaches a staggering 430,000 mph (692,000 kph).

In a moment that has been compared to the moon landing of 1969, Parker will ‘touch’ the sun’s surface to gather vital data. During that brief flyby, the probe will pass through the sun’s super-hot outer atmosphere called the corona – the origin of solar storms which have the potential to cause chaos on Earth. Although the Parker probe will endure temperatures exceeding 1,400 °C (2,550 °F) its near-indestructible heat shield should allow it to survive the extreme conditions.  Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe mission operations manager at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), says: ‘No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory.’ The Parker Solar Probe was launched from Cape Canaveral in August 2018 before embarking on the 93 million-mile (149 million km) journey to the sun.

The goal was to gather more data about the sun’s corona by flying as close as possible through the stellar atmosphere. Because the gravitation pull is so strong at this distance, the probe needs to be moving incredibly fast to avoid slipping into the heart of the sun. To do this, the probe has been repeatedly ‘slingshot’ around the sun and Venus, getting progressively faster with each pass. In 2021, Parker made its first successful pass of the solar corona, dipping into a region where temperatures can reach over one million degrees Centigrade for up to five hours. Since then, Parker has completed 21 solar slingshots, but tomorrow the probe will smash its own record for both speed and distance. (Dailymail)