{"id":180219,"date":"2024-01-10T19:26:03","date_gmt":"2024-01-11T01:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/monumental-achievement-for-all-humanity-nasas-parker-solar-probe-is-gearing-up-for-a-record-breaking-encounter-with-the-sun"},"modified":"2024-01-10T19:26:03","modified_gmt":"2024-01-11T01:26:03","slug":"monumental-achievement-for-all-humanity-nasas-parker-solar-probe-is-gearing-up-for-a-record-breaking-encounter-with-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/monumental-achievement-for-all-humanity-nasas-parker-solar-probe-is-gearing-up-for-a-record-breaking-encounter-with-the-sun","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Monumental achievement for all humanity\u2019: NASA\u2019s Parker Solar Probe is gearing up for a record-breaking encounter with the sun"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/monumental-achievement-for-all-humanity-nasas-parker-solar-probe-is-gearing-up-for-a-record-breaking-encounter-with-the-sun.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>NASA\u2019s Parker Solar Probe has already gotten closer to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.livescience.com\/space\/astronomy\/the-sun\" rel=\"nofollow\"> the sun<\/a> than any other human-made object. Yet, later this year, the star-skimming spacecraft will get even closer \u2014 all while traveling faster than its previous top speed.<\/p>\n<p>The solar observatory \u2014 which, on Dec. 28, 2023, completed its 18th close flyby of the sun \u2014 will once again approach our star on Dec. 24, 2024. During this encounter, it will come within around 3.8 million miles (6.1 million kilometers) of the photosphere, which can be roughly considered the sun\u2019s surface. (The sun is a ball of gas, so it doesn\u2019t really have a surface.) To do so, the spacecraft will brave temperatures of around 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit (1,400 degrees Celsius).<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are basically almost landing on a star,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/space.jhuapl.edu\/people\/nour-raouafi\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"> Nour Raouafi<\/a>, an astrophysicist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and project scientist for the Parker Solar Probe mission, told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/science-environment-67837161\" rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\"> BBC News<\/a>. \u201cThis will be a monumental achievement for all humanity. This is equivalent to the Moon landing of 1969.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>NASA\u2019s Parker Solar Probe has already gotten closer to the sun than any other human-made object. Yet, later this year, the star-skimming spacecraft will get even closer \u2014 all while traveling faster than its previous top speed. The solar observatory \u2014 which, on Dec. 28, 2023, completed its 18th close flyby of the sun \u2014 [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":661,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/661"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}