Parker Solar Probe

Parker Solar Probe launched on August 12, 2018, on a mission once thought impossible: to fly into the Sun’s outer atmosphere. Protected by a 4.5-inch carbon-composite heat shield that faces 2,500-degree heat while the instruments behind ride at room temperature, it became the first spacecraft to touch the corona in 2021.

Using repeated Venus gravity assists to spiral ever closer, Parker has flown within 3.8 million miles of the solar surface at 430,000 mph — the fastest and closest any human-made object has ever traveled. Its measurements of magnetic ‘switchbacks’ and the birthplace of the solar wind are rewriting the physics of how the Sun sheds the storms that buffet Earth’s technology.