NASA probe expected to zoom past sun this year

A NASA probe will fly within nearly 4 million miles of the sun's surface
The Parker Solar Probe is expected to reach the milestone on Dec. 24
Launched in 2018, the probe is primarily studying the solar wind

Updated: Jan 1, 2024 / 06:51 PM CST

This image made available by NASA shows an artist’s rendering of the Parker Solar Probe approaching the Sun. On Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021, NASA announced that the spacecraft has plunged through the unexplored solar atmosphere known as the corona in April, and will keep drawing ever closer to the sun and diving deeper into the corona. (Steve Gribben/Johns Hopkins APL/NASA via AP)

(NewsNation) —A NASA probe will fly within nearly 4 million miles of the sun’s surface.

The probe is expected to pass the sun 3.8 million miles from its surface on Christmas Eve this year, BBC News reported.

“This will be a monumental achievement for all humanity,” Parker project scientist Dr Nour Raouafi told BBC News. “This is equivalent to the Moon landing of 1969.”

Launched in 2018, the Parker probe became the first spacecraft to fly through the Sun’s upper atmosphere in 2021. It’s designed to withstand the sun’s harsh conditions and can trace the flow of energy, study the heating of the solar corona, and explore what accelerates the solar wind, according to NASA.

Understanding the solar wind helps scientists better understand Earth’s solar systems and others. Over time, solar wind can affect planetary atmospheres and habitability, NASA wrote in a news release.

“I suspect we’ll sense lots of different types of waves which would point to a mix of processes that people have been arguing over for years,” Dr. Nicky Fox told BBC News.

Fox is currently the head of science at Nasa and previously worked as the lead scientist on the Parker project.