The Parker Solar Probe will reach astonishing speeds as it dips close to our star's surface in 2024.

It promises to be a remarkable moment in the history of space exploration.

A year from now, on 24 December, Nasa’s Parker Solar Probe will race past the Sun at the astonishing speed of 195 km/s, or 435,000 mph.

No human-made object will have moved so fast nor, indeed, got so close to our star - just 6.1 million km, or 3.8 million miles from the Sun’s “surface”.

“We are basically almost landing on a star,” said Parker project scientist Dr Nour Raouafi.

“This will be a monumental achievement for all humanity. This is equivalent to the Moon landing of 1969,” the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory scientist told BBC News.

  • Heggico@lemmy.world
    31·
    11 months ago

    The sun is 1.4 million kilometers in diameter. 6 meter from a 1 meter diameter sphere is relatively close.

    Also the sun’s corona stretches out about 8 million kilometers from its surface, so for this probe its like its moving inside the earths atmosphere.

    So… pretty dang close.