After a three-year journey, a spacecraft has entered the sun's atmosphere for the first time ever. NASA's Parker Solar Probe is now closer to the sun than any other man-made object has ever been before.
The Parker Solar Probe was sent on its mission to brave the roughly 2 million degrees Fahrenheit environment in 2018.
The spacecraft has arrived and has circled the sun more than eight times. In April 2021, it "touched" the sun for the first time. It entered the low density and high-temperature upper atmosphere of the sun, corona, according to data published in Physical Review Letters on Tuesday.
"Parker Solar Probe' touching the Sun' is a monumental moment for solar science and a truly remarkable feat," Thomas Zurbuchen, the associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA, said in a press release.
NASA sent the spacecraft to the sun to learn about solar winds — streams of particles that influence the Earth — and the sun's surface temperature.
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The probe and trip were made possible by NASA, Harvard University, and the Smithsonian's Center for Astrophysics.
The Center for Astrophysics constructed the Solar Probe Cup, the part of the spacecraft that collected sample particles from the sun's atmosphere to confirm that it entered the corona so it could collect data.
"Not only does this milestone provide us with deeper insights into our Sun's evolution and its impacts on our solar system," Zurbuchen said. "But everything we learn about our own star also teaches us more about stars in the rest of the universe."
With the spacecraft being in the sun's atmosphere, scientists hope to learn how solar winds are formed. Early research into the data published Tuesday has researchers hypothesize they are formed in the sun's magnetic funnels.
The solar probe will now spiral closer to the sun and hopefully reach a distance of around 4 million miles from the surface, reentering the atmosphere in January 2022.
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