A car-size spacecraft described as the fastest human-made object zoomed inside the sun’s atmosphere for the first time ever last spring and gathered scientific data that could help unlock the secrets of our host star, scientists involved with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration mission said Tuesday.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe came within 8.1 million miles of the solar surface on April 28—marking humanity’s closest approach ever to the sun—as it made its eighth looping orbit around the star, the scientists said. Accelerated by the sun’s powerful gravity, the 1,400-pound, $1.5 billion probe at times has been clocked at speeds of up to 365,000 miles per hour since its 2018 launch.
