NASA’s Parker Solar Probe to Make Historic Closest Approach to the Sun on Christmas Eve

NASA’s Parker Solar Probe is set to make history this Christmas Eve with its closest-ever approach to the Sun, coming within 6.2 million kilometers of the solar surface.

This milestone marks a major achievement in the spacecraft’s mission to deepen our understanding of the Sun and enhance space weather forecasts that impact life on Earth.

Launched in August 2018, the Parker Solar Probe is on a seven-year journey to explore the Sun’s atmosphere and its mysteries.

The closest approach will occur on Tuesday, December 24, at 4:53 a.m. local time (11:53 GMT).

“This mission represents NASA’s bold efforts to push the boundaries of exploration and solve age-old questions about the Sun,” said Arik Posner, Parker Solar Probe program scientist. “We eagerly await the spacecraft’s status update and the science data it will bring in the following weeks.”

During this close encounter, known as perihelion, the probe will temporarily lose direct communication with mission control.

Parker Solar Probe will endure extreme temperatures of 870 to 930°C, but its heat shield will protect the internal instruments, which will remain near room temperature at 29°C, while it enters the Sun’s outer atmosphere, known as the corona.

The spacecraft will travel at an incredible speed of 690,000 kilometers per hour—fast enough to cross from Washington, D.C., to Tokyo in under a minute. “No human-made object has ever come this close to a star, and Parker will be sending data from this uncharted territory,” said Nick Pinkine, mission operations manager at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).

The spacecraft’s daring journey is helping scientists unravel key solar mysteries, such as the origin of solar wind, the reasons behind the corona’s extreme heat, and the formation of coronal mass ejections—massive plasma clouds that can impact space weather.