Things are heating for the USA's National Aeronautical Space Administration (NASA). One the agency's missions is to study the Sun. In 2018, NASA sent a small research probe to photograph our nearest star. The spacecraft is called the Parker Solar Probe. It made history Christmas Eve going closer to the Sun than any spacecraft has ever gone before. Parker flew to 6.1 million kilometers of the Sun. This is very close. Parker also holds another record. It is the fastest object ever built humans. In September 2023, it flew a speed of 635,266 kph. this speed, the probe could travel the 10,846 km New York to Tokyo just 1.025 minutes.
The Parker Solar Probe is named after the astrophysicist Dr Eugene Parker. He spent most his life studying the Sun and its solar flares. He wanted to know why the flares, which shoot off the Sun's surface, are hotter than the surface. This is known as the "coronal heating problem". It is a long-standing mystery scientists. The temperature the Sun's surface is 4,100ºC; while the temperature the corona's flares can reach 1.1 million degrees Celsius. Scientists also hope to find how solar winds originate. NASA said Parker (the probe) has faced extreme heat its record-breaking fly-by. Temperatures reached a scorching 980 degrees Celsius.
