NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will make its final flyby of Venus on Wednesday, setting the spacecraft to become the closest human-made object to Earth. Sun on Christmas Eve this year.

Launched in 2018 Parker Solar Probe It is slowly closing the distance to the Sun and will reach within 6.8 million miles of our star on December 24.

On Wednesday, the spacecraft began the final phase of this historic approach, coming within 233 miles of the spacecraft. Venus. Using the planet’s gravity assist, the spacecraft will prepare for its final orbital configuration around the Sun. The mission used its two previous flybys in 2020 and 2021 to collect data about Venus with the spacecraft’s Parker Solar Probe, or Wide Field Imager for WISPR.

NASA He said scientists expected to be able to track changes in Venetian cloud cover, but were surprised to find during the 2020 flyby that WISPR could see through thick clouds to the planet’s surface.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of the X9.0 solar flare – as seen in the bright flash at the center – on October 03, 2024. The image shows a mixture of 171 Angstrom and 131 Angstrom light, which are extreme ultraviolet subsets of light.

(NASA/SDO)

Following Wednesday’s flyby of Venus, Parker Solar Probe will begin the final leg of its mission, coming closer to the Sun than any human-made object before.

Parker continues to break his own record. The spacecraft set a new record for the closest approach of a human-made object to the Sun at 26.55 million miles, just 78 days after liftoff in 2018. The spacecraft will blast this record out of the water and come almost seven times closer.

ULA’s Delta IV Heavy rocket launches from Cape Canaveral, Florida, sending NASA’s Parker Solar Probe into space on August 12, 2018.

(ULA)

“This is a great engineering achievement” said Adam Szabo, NASA Parker Solar Probe project scientist.

The timing of this close approach is perfect because the Sun has recently reached Solar maximum in Solar Cycle 25 and remains very active, with solar flares coming from active sunspot regions.

To study the Sun like no other spacecraft has done before, the Parker Solar Probe is a 4.5-inch-thick carbon composite shield built to withstand temperatures of 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

During closest approach Christmas Eve This year the spacecraft will dive through plasma clouds still attached to the Sun. That’s close enough to pass through a solar flare, similar to a surfer duck diving beneath an ocean wave, according to NASA.